Re: how to decode metadump info produced by xfs_db, and superblock error

[Stan Hoeppner <stan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

lord worm put forth on 1/29/2011 6:25 PM:
> 
> What kind of information is in this file produced by metadump, is it worth 
> reading it somehow?
> 
> I'm trying to first understand what's causing a 'superblock cannot be read' 
> error in my XFS after a succesfully dd of the partition (dd succeeds in 
> copying to a file, and also restoring, but after restoring it cannot mount).
> 
> xfs_repair fails to fix it, how should I attach the 55M metadata file to this 
> email (do we have an upload location for this?), max size on hotmail is 25M 
> ...
> 
> Does the superblock error refer to primary or secondary superblocks? Does 
> xfs_repair attempt to clone the broken superblock from the others?


dd is not a proper XFS filesystem backup/restore utility.  Instead use xfsdump
and xfsrestore, or any file level backup/restore solution.

You obviously now know why you shouldn't use dd for this purpose with XFS. ;)

-- 
Stan