[londonperl] A difficult filesystem

[Dirk Koopman]

Dirk Koopman wrote:
> Andy Armstrong wrote:
>> On 20 Jun 2007, at 17:25, Dirk Koopman wrote:
>>>> To clarify - the rsync based backup runs fine. What fails is using 
>>>> rsync to copy the /whole/ filesystem. I was only using rsync to do 
>>>> that because I've had success with it in the past. I don't need a 
>>>> remote copy, both drives in the same machine.
>>>
>>> is cp -a too simplistic,
>>
>> Hard links. Many of them.
>>
>>> failing that there is always that old standby
>>>
>>> find / ! -name newdisc | cpio -pduvm /newdisk
>>
>> Hard links :)
>>
> 
> Which every cpio since the ark detects and correctly deals with:-
> 

and as (IIRC) tar and cpio are now effectively the same thing, if your 
target filesystem is big enough, you can do the other old fashioned 
thing which is tar the old filesystem across to the new one (don't 
forget the --exclude <mount point>) and then untar it in place.

And (having just tested it) cp -a correctly transfers hard links as 
well, but it does not do the --exclude so you end up going up your 
mobius bottle.