Risks of backing up live mounted filesystems using dump(8)

[Wolfgang S. Rupprecht]

Chris Adams <cmadams at hiwaay.net> writes:
> A better way is to use LVM.  Put the filesystem in question on a logical
> volume, leave some space free in the volume group, and then take a
> snapshot when you want to back it up.  Mount the snapshot at a different
> mount point and back it up however you want (dump, rsync, whatever).
> This way, you get a backup of a moment-in-time.

I've been using LVM snapshots for backups for a year or two now.  This
is probably also the best reason for using LVM compared to putting the
filesystem on bare iron (particles).

The only caveat I'd like to add is that one should make sure the
snapshot filesystem eventually gets deleted after a crash.  It wasn't
until I had a disk-hang and needed to reboot during a backup that I
realized this minor bug in my backup scripts.

-wolfgang
-- 
Wolfgang S. Rupprecht
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