Need advice on dump/restore with Linux 2.4.x

Hi all,

I recently set up a RedHat 8.0 fileserver, and opted for dump as the backup tool for the 20Gb user data partition. I have since read in one of the RedHat manuals that dump is NOT RECOMMENDED (to quote ...) for 2.4.x kernels, with testimonials from Linus himself

Is it really a no no ? The backups are done at night when no-one is accessing any files. Also, should I be doing 'sync ; sync ' before the backup ? Why do this twice ?

I chose dump mainly because I felt it was easy to use - I particularly like having the dump contents available for using with restore for individual file/s restore , the Q file option etc.

Any thoughts would be gratefully recieved.

Thanks,

Craig J

I give up; why do *you* do it twice? sync writes any data buffered in memory out to disk.

If I understand correctly, the Linux dump program understands the ext2 filesystem only, making things somewhat less than portable.

tony

Thanks,

I have now satisfied myself that there is no issue with using dump on an umounted filesystem - which is what I'll do. I spent about 2 hours reading massive threads on the subject last night - pretty interesting actually (oh god, do I need to get out more ?)

Cheers,