Hi,
I have just recently started using xfsdump. I consider it to be one of the
main benifits to using the XFS filesystem, due to it's inventory system.
There are a few things I haven't found a way to do yet, though. Any
suggestions welcome.
1) xfsdump -J ... it is required when /var is mounted read-only. This
inhibits writing the dump session to /var/lib/xfsdump/inventory, as well as
writing the dump session to a tape file. Yet when booted from cd/network
and root is read-only, it is often desirable to make a dump while doing
system repairs (xfs_repair needs to boot from somewhere else to run even).
Also related is the "miniroot" environment in the xfsdump man page... this
could use some more explanation.
It would be nice if -J or some other option would allow the user to bypass
the update of /var/lib/xfsdump/inventory, but still write the session
inventory to a tape file, since xfsrestore can later be used to merge (or
inspect?) it when listing/restore a session. (related to #2)
2) The man page for xfsdump states that the inventory written to tape is
currently not used, however I was able to merge it into
/var/lib/xfsdump/inventory when using xfsrestore to list a session on tape.
It would be nice if the man pages stated exactly when and how the inventory
file on the tape is used/not used.
3) This has been mentioned before on the list... What is the difference
between "mt erase" and "xfsdump -o" and "xfsdump -E". Is there a way to
erase a tape but keep it's media object UUID. It would be ideal to allow
this, and prune the inventory of that's media object's UUID automatically.
If this is possible, then adding a counter to how many times that media
object has been used would give it all the features of Veritas. Would be
nice.
Regards,
Jeremy
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