[net.unix-wizards] Undocumented dump feature

sid@linus.UUCP (Sid Stuart) (03/28/84)

The dump program on our 4.1 bsd system has the undocumented feature that
it can be given a path name instead of a filesystem name. The path name must
be a directory entry in fstab, dump looks in fstab to get the raw filesystem
name. For example, if I have the following line in /etc/fstab,

/dev/up0h:/va:rw:1:2

Then the following to calls to dump have the same effect.


dump 0u /dev/rup0h

dump 0u /va

This is a nice feature if you have your dumps set up in a shell script
for an operator to use. When you have a head crash (we have had two in the
last month) you do not need to rewrite the script when the system is
reconfigured.


				sid@LINUS.UUCP

dmmartindale@watcgl.UUCP (Dave Martindale) (04/01/84)

Dumping by the name of the directory where the filesystem is mounted
rather than absolute device name is even nicer if you want to do backups
on a number of machines, each of which has the same set of mounted
filesystems but on different hardware, without needing a different
shell file for each machine.