Backup question

[Matthew Miller]

On Sun, Mar 16, 2014 at 12:29:16PM -0600, CS DBA wrote:
> I have an rsync script to backup my entire system each time before I
> run updates, as versions come & go I try and keep up with which top
> level directories to backup knowing that some like /proc are
> virtual...
> Here's my question:  If I simply backup all directories (including
> ones like /proc & /media, etc) will the following work, or do I need
> to care about specifically excluding the virtual directories?

It might not _hurt_ to back up /proc, /sys, and the like, but it's a waste
of time and effort since these are all entirely dynamically generated and
you can't possibly restore them.

You can use rsync -x to keep rsync from crossing filesystems, and then just
do it separately for each real filesystem you want.

Alternately, you might want to try the new "Fedora Atomic" --
http://rpm-ostree.cloud.fedoraproject.org/. As the name implies, this lets
you do atomic updates and switch back if thereis aproblem.

-- 
Matthew Miller    --   Fedora Project    --    <mattdm at fedoraproject.org>