'ufs' support in Partimage Linux backup tool
I wanted to back up Solaris x86 to external disk. Being a lazy guy, I hate re-installing OS. So, I wanted to take HDD image. There are 3 limiting factors in external disk.
- There is not much space.
- Maximum file size is 4GB.
- It's FAT32 formatted.
So, I searched for a backup tool with compression & splitting capability. I found Partimage. Supported-Filesystems page says there is beta 'ufs' support.
Here are the steps how I came to believe what 'beta' means.
- Solaris x86: Run 'format'->'partition'->'print'. I need to back up slice#2. Notice slice#7 size is 2.71GB.
- Solaris x86: Run 'df -k' to see how much of slice#7 is actually used. Only 2.7MB is used.
- Boot with SystemRescueCd Live CD. Run partimage. It could only detect slice#7 as 'ufs'. I tried to backup other "-unknown-" partitions to no avail. At this point, I knew that I can't take back up with this tool. But my experiment continues....
- Backing up slice#7(sda8). It says 58MB is used, which doesn't coincide with 'df' result.
- I ran actual backup and it finished quick creating small image file. The smallness means 'Partimage' is more efficient than 'dd'.
- I ran 'strings' command on this file and it looked valid. But I didn't bother to restore from this image file and compare the resulting file system with /export/home in original Sol x86.
Hey, I'm trying to create an image of a SPARC SunOS 5.8 did this actually work? Did you ever do a restore to see if it worked?
Posted by Elliott on April 19, 2008 at 05:33 AM JST #
Thanks, Elliot for comment. But, I haven't tried SPARC. On x86, I haven't tried actuall restore. Sorry for not much information.
Posted by Katsumi INOUE on April 19, 2008 at 10:24 AM JST #