sklower@okeeffe.berkeley.edu (Keith Sklower) (12/20/88)
As has been noted on sun-spots previously, when one dumps an active file system, one runs (a somewhat low, but non-neglible) risk of various nasties happening and causing some inconsistencies in the dump tape. I don't recall anybody mentioning the possibility of briefly downing the system only to remount the file system being dumped on the file server READ-ONLY. We've resorted to doing this a couple of times at Berkeley, when a conference was scheduled immediately following a school break, so that the system HAD to be available for reference, but we also HAD to get full dumps done. This way, the file system remains unchanged for the duration of the dump (which does take appreciably longer, multiuser), but users can have emergency access.
paul@concour.cs.concordia.ca (Paul Gill) (01/03/89)
sklower@okeeffe.berkeley.edu (Keith Sklower) writes: >As has been noted on sun-spots previously, when one dumps an active file >system, one runs (a somewhat low, but non-neglible) risk of various >nasties happening and causing some inconsistencies in the dump tape. > > [rest of article deleted] I would like to have more details on the sort of nasties one risks when doing dumps on active file system. I have been doing all dumps (except level 0) on Sun OS3.5 and Vax BSD4.3 without shutting down the systems. I never had any problem restoring but maybe I was very lucky over the last 2 years. Thank --- Paul Gill Analyst, Concordia University, Computer Science, 1455 De Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3G 1M8 (514)-848-3035