Clarification required about xfs_metadump and xfs_mdrestore

[murali krishna <murali.marimekala@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi All,

Got your email id from Nathan Scott.Â

Could you please clarify the reasons behind stating below statement in
xfs_metadump man page.

xfs_metadump should not be used for any purposes other than for
   Âdebugging and reporting filesystem problems

Man page:Âhttp://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man8/xfs_metadump.8.html

I am trying to encrypt my existing xfs drive (/dev/sda2) and would like to backup metadata using xfs_metadump and restore it back using xfs_mdrestore after encrypting my drive. In order to retain entire contents of my realtime partition (/dev/sda1), I need to perform this step.

Can I use xfs_metadump to backup meta-data of xfs and restore it back successfully ?
Why xfs_metadump should be specifically used as debugging tool ? Please clarify ?

Thanks in Advance,

Murali