SUMMARY: exclude dump

From: RBEBB@usc.pppl.gov
Date: Tue Jun 18 1991 - 08:22:55 CDT


Hi,

I sent the following:

>Hi again,
>
>Since I received no replies, I thought I'd try again and see if someone would
>at least acknowledge seeing this.
>
>> We are running 4.0.3 and have added swap space using a mkfile and swapon.
>> This seems to work fine except that this file is included in our dumps, an
>> additional 25MB's.
>>
>> How can we do dumps and exclude this swap file?
>
>> Thanks Russ <rbebb@usc.pppl.gov>
>
>Thanks, Russ <rbebb@usc.pppl.gov>
>

Apparently, my original post did not go out.

Thanks for the many replies. The summary follows.

 1. list the files and directories to be dumped on the command line (or
                set up the list in a file, see dump(8))

 2. put the swap files in their own separate partition (and set the
                backup flat to 0 in /etc/fstab)

        don't use mkfile so won't have to use filesystem to access swap

        spread to several disks / controllers offers speed advantage

 3. use tar -X or tar and compress or GNU tar or bar or cpio -f or Legato
                NetWorker 2.0 instead

 4. use 4.1 to explicitly exclude files (explicitly include files?)

 5. "... do a "dummy" level 0 dump, say to /dev/null, touch the files you
                 wanted to backup, and run a higher level dump (1 perhaps?).
                This wouldn't work with the swap file, as it would be
                continuously updated. ..."

 6. "... doesn't work for level-0 dumps, but should do the trick for all
                your incrementals ..."
                        "... [before the 'swapon swapfile' is executed]
                        mount the filesystem that contains the swapfile
                        reset the date to a date before the last level-0 dump
                        'touch' the swapfile
                        set the date back to today
                        unmount the filesystem
                        do the dump ..."

 7. "... since you should at least umount the filesystems, why not erase
                the file altogether ? ..."

 8. use an exabyte for backups, then 25MB is trivial

 9. make the swap file with -n (dynamic allocation) option

10. write a program (man utimes) to change modification time

Thanks to all who responded, including

holle@ASC.SLB.COM odt@phillies.base.bellcore.com
paul@concour.cs.concordia.ca bchivers@smiley.mitre.org
tyen@mundo.eco.utexas.edu dinah@lgc.com
datri@concave.convex.com macphed@dvinci.usask.ca
feldt@phyast.nhn.uoknor.edu sjh@helicon.math.purdue.edu
trinkle@cs.purdue.edu @VM.ITS.RPI.EDU:VINCE@UCONNVM.BITNET
battan@sequent.com mikem@juliet.ll.mit.edu
picard@ilog.ilog.fr pomeranz@isis.dccs.upenn.edu
kenton@space.mit.edu selig@centaur.msfc.nasa.gov
wuthel!brand@lll-winken.llnl.gov oconnor!miker@oddjob.uchicago.edu
JAMES_M._ZIOBRO.WBST102A@xerox.com Kennedy_J_Lemke@Princeton.EDU
roger@sst.ll.mit.edu upkar@wsu-eng.eng.wayne.edu
fetrow@orac.biostat.washington.edu dusan@cs.uq.oz.au
kjv@tampella.fi urszula@garnet.berkeley.edu
finnell@portia.mitre.org bill@jtsv16.jts.com
polstra!jdp@uunet.UU.NET adobe!adobe.com!weaver@decwrl.dec.com
thakur@zerkalo.harvard.edu harvey@physics.heriot-watt.ac.uk
rick@computer-science.manchester.ac.uk martin@uk.ac.umist.ccl
robert@computing-maths.cardiff.ac.uk brent@crick.ssctr.bcm.tmc.edu

I shall put swap into a separate partition.

Thanks, Russ <rbebb@usc.pppl.gov>



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