Clarification required about xfs_metadump and xfs_mdrestore

[Darrick J. Wong]

On Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 09:49:11AM -0400, murali krishna wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> Got your email id from Nathan Scott.
> 
> 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
>  debugging and reporting filesystem problems*
> Man page: http://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 ?

Uh.... if your goal is to back up data, reformat the storage with a crypto
layer, and then restore the data, why not just use xfsdump/xfsrestore?
Your data will end up all nicely defragmented, too.

--D

> 
> Thanks in Advance,
> Murali

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