Without snapshots there is some risk to get inconsistent set of files when you make a backup of live file system. In general this is a problem but I'm not sure about your case. Actually there is another solution to this problem shutdown the system and take the backup using bootable CD/DVD (or booting from another OS installation). You should unmount a file system before backing up with dd. You can also take a look at Clonezilla which is an open-source image-backup software. 2009/6/21 Rafał Radecki <radecki.rafal at gmail.com> > I think about using dd instead of dump? Is this an acceptable idea? > > 2009/6/21 Robert Heller <heller at deepsoft.com> > > At Sun, 21 Jun 2009 11:49:09 +0200 CentOS mailing list <centos at centos.org> >> wrote: >> >> > >> > >> > >> > Hi all. I'm currently having a following problem: I have only ssh >> connection >> > to a CentOS 5.2 system, there are two harddiscs on it. One stores the >> system >> > (/ filesystem) and the other should be used to help restore the system >> in >> > case of first disks' failure. I thought that maybe dump would be a good >> > utility to make it. But in only works on read-only filesystems. In one >> >> Dump works just fine on a read-write file system. There is the pretty >> much standard limitation (that applies to *all* backup methods) that >> when backing up an 'active' file system: there will always be files that >> will miss the backup because they were being written during the backup >> process. >> >> > article I've read that making a snapshot of the / filesystem (then it >> > wouldbe read-only) and backing it could help. But aren't snapshots >> limited >> > to logical volumes (LVM)? My friend told me to use rsync to back up the >> > entire / filesystem to the second disk and then in case o failure the >> system >> > from the copy should boot ok. >> > >> > Could anyone provide any suggestions? I don't have physical contact with >> the >> > machine so for example RAID 1 isn't a possible option/ >> > >> > Any help will be very kindly appreciated. >> >> Make an initial dump to get the base system copied, then set up a cron >> job to sync the disks once a day (or more frequently) with rsync. >> >> > >> > With regards, >> > R. >> > >> > MIME-Version: 1.0 >> > >> > _______________________________________________ >> > CentOS mailing list >> > CentOS at centos.org >> > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos >> > >> > >> >> -- >> Robert Heller -- 978-544-6933 >> Deepwoods Software -- Download the Model Railroad System >> http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Binaries for Linux and MS-Windows >> heller at deepsoft.com -- http://www.deepsoft.com/ModelRailroadSystem/ >> >> _______________________________________________ >> CentOS mailing list >> CentOS at centos.org >> http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos >> > > > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/attachments/20090621/a6f6202d/attachment-0005.html>