On Tue, 12 Jan 2016 23:01:33 +0000 steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk wrote:
On 12/01/16 20:05, Bill Hill wrote:
On 12/01/2016 19:03, Chris Walker wrote:
it was taking a long time. It's trying to rsync /proc/kcore and it's
/proc is a virtual filesystem - no real files, just a "filesystem-like" view into the current state of the system. For example, /proc/meminfo is a summary of the state of the system's memory usage, or /proc/423/cmdline is the command line options for process 423, or /proc/fs/ext4/mmcblk0p2/options is a list of the current mount options of ext4 filesystem on partition 2 of device mmcblk0p2 And /proc/kcore is a look into the current kernel addressable memory space. Some of it will be real memory, most won't. So, you don't need to and shouldn't back up anything in /proc Or for that matter some of the other virtual/temporary file systems, e.g. /sys or possibly /tmp.
Bill
You know that list that started this:
It's because of that and the continuing problems that I need an up-to-date backup.
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on devtmpfs 3.0G 0 3.0G 0% /dev tmpfs 3.0G 1.4M 3.0G 1% /dev/shm tmpfs 3.0G 940K 3.0G 1% /run /dev/sdb5 7.6G 7.2G 0 100% / /dev/sdb7 7.6G 5.6G 1.7G 78% /usr tmpfs 3.0G 0 3.0G 0% /sys/fs/cgroup tmpfs 3.0G 88K 3.0G 1% /tmp /dev/sdb8 849G 202G 647G 24% /home tmpfs 597M 12K 597M 1% /run/user/1000
A quick rule (that I've just invented) is probably back up anything that has a file system tmpfs or devtmpfs.
In my rsync backup job I have --exclude-from=excludefilelist
excludefilelist contains (amongst other things) /sys/* /dev/* /proc/* /media/* /mnt/* /tmp/* /lost+found/* /home/MAINUSER/.gvfs/* /home/MAINUSER/.gvfs /var/tmp/* /root/.Trash/* /root/.local/share/Trash/* *.iso home/MAINUSER/.local/share/Trash/* home/\*/.local/share/Trash/* /home/\*/.gvfs/* /exports/*
I've created a script to do the rsync stuff and have added those to the exclude list.
[snip]
Be careful if you back the disk somewhere on the same disk. (Actually, in Linux, you probably have to be careful about this almost every time).
It's being backed up to a 1TB disc which is fixed in the machine and is used as a transit storage between the linux side and Windows 10 (the machine dual boots).
Imagine you are backing up all files on /. You are backing up to /mnt/externaldrive. /mnt/externaldrive is a subdirectory of /. If you back up / it will back up to /mnt/externaldrive that will begin to fill up. Eventually as the backup proceeds, it will start backing up /mnt/externaldrive. This directory includes all the files that it's backed up already, so it backs them up. As it does this, there are more files in /mnt/externaldrive, which it backs up, until your disk fills up.
The solution is to exclude the mount point for your backup drive, or all mount points (as I have done).
The drive to which I'm doing the backup is mounted as /media/Disc_Swap_Space/ so /media/ was already on the exclude list. I also have a NAS drive which is also mounted at /media/. I've fallen at that hurdle before!
I hope that gives you some pointers
Indeed it does. Thanks too to Bill Hill for his ideas.
Next question!
I want to wipe everything from this drive and re-install with the latest release of Mageia 5. I also want to repartition the disc to avoid running out of space in the future. Is there a good guide somewhere that people would advise me to look at before doing that?
I realise that I can just search for something but I want a guide that people think is the definitive guide and one that can be trusted for good advice.