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29.\" $Id: dump.8.in,v 1.52 2003/03/31 09:42:57 stelian Exp $
30.\"
31.TH DUMP 8 "version __VERSION__ of __DATE__" BSD "System management commands"
32.SH NAME
33dump \- ext2/3 filesystem backup
34.SH SYNOPSIS
35.B dump
36[\fB\-0123456789ackMnqSuv\fR]
37[\fB\-A \fIfile\fR]
38[\fB\-B \fIrecords\fR]
39[\fB\-b \fIblocksize\fR]
40[\fB\-d \fIdensity\fR]
41[\fB\-D \fIfile\fR]
42[\fB\-e \fIinode numbers\fR]
43[\fB\-E \fIfile\fR]
44[\fB\-f \fIfile\fR]
45[\fB\-F \fIscript\fR]
46[\fB\-h \fIlevel\fR]
47[\fB\-I \fInr errors\fR]
48[\fB\-j\fIcompression level\fR]
49[\fB\-L \fIlabel\fR]
50[\fB\-Q \fIfile\fR]
51[\fB\-s \fIfeet\fR]
52[\fB\-T \fIdate\fR]
53[\fB\-y\fR]
54[\fB\-z\fIcompression level\fR]
55.I files-to-dump
56.PP
57.B dump
58[\fB\-W \fR| \fB\-w\fR]
59.PP
60(The 4.3BSD option syntax is implemented for backward compatibility but is not
61documented here.)
62.SH DESCRIPTION
63.B Dump
64examines files on an ext2/3 filesystem and determines which files need to be
65backed up. These files are copied to the given disk, tape or other storage
66medium for safe keeping (see the
67.B \-f
68option below for doing remote backups). A dump that is larger than the output
69medium is broken into multiple volumes. On most media the size is determined by
70writing until an end-of-media indication is returned.
71.PP
72On media that cannot reliably return an end-of-media indication (such as some
73cartridge tape drives), each volume is of a fixed size; the actual size is
74determined by specifying cartridge media, or via the tape size, density and/or
75block count options below. By default, the same output file name is used for
76each volume after prompting the operator to change media.
77.PP
78.I files-to-dump
79is either a mountpoint of a filesystem or a list of files and directories to be
80backed up as a subset of a filesystem. In the former case, either the path to a
81mounted filesystem or the device of an unmounted filesystem can be used. In the
82latter case, certain restrictions are placed on the backup:
83.B \-u
84is not allowed, the only dump level that is supported is
85.B 0
86and all the files and directories must reside on the same filesystem.
87.SH OPTIONS
88The following options are supported by
89.B dump:
90.TP
91.BI \-0\-9
92Dump levels. A level 0, full backup, guarantees the entire file system is
93copied (but see also the
94.B \-h
95option below). A level number above 0, incremental backup, tells
96.B dump
97to
98copy all files new or modified since the last dump of a lower level. The
99default level is 9.
100.TP
101.BI \-a
102\*(lqauto-size\*(rq. Bypass all tape length calculations, and write until an
103end-of-media indication is returned. This works best for most modern tape
104drives, and is the default. Use of this option is particularly recommended when
105appending to an existing tape, or using a tape drive with hardware compression
106(where you can never be sure about the compression ratio).
107.TP
108.BI \-A " archive_file"
109Archive a dump table-of-contents in the specified
110.I archive_file
111to be used by
112.BR restore (8)
113to determine whether a file is in the dump file that is being restored.
114.TP
115.BI \-b " blocksize"
116The number of kilobytes per dump record. The default blocksize is 10
117and the maximal value is 1024.
118Note however that, since the IO system slices all requests into chunks
119of
120.B MAXBSIZE
121(which can be as low as 64kB), you can experience problems with
122.BR dump (8)
123and
124.BR restore (8)
125when using a higher value, depending on your kernel and/or libC versions.
126.TP
127.BI \-B " records"
128The number of 1 kB blocks per volume. Not normally required, as
129.B dump
130can detect end-of-media. When the specified size is reached,
131.B dump
132waits for you to change the volume. This option overrides the calculation of
133tape size based on length and density. If compression is on this limits the
134size of the compressed output per volume.
135.TP
136.BI \-c
137Change the defaults for use with a cartridge tape drive, with a density of 8000
138bpi, and a length of 1700 feet. Specifying a cartridge drive overrides the
139end-of-media detection.
140.TP
141.BI \-d " density"
142Set tape density to
143.IR density .
144The default is 1600BPI. Specifying a tape density overrides the end-of-media
145detection.
146.TP
147.BI \-D " file"
148Set the path name of the file storing the information about the previous
149full and incremental dumps. The default location is
150.IR __DUMPDATES__ .
151.TP
152.BI \-e " inodes"
153Exclude
154.I inodes
155from the dump. The
156.I inodes
157parameter is a comma separated list of inode numbers (you can use
158.BR stat (1)
159to find the inode number for a file or directory).
160.TP
161.BI \-E " file"
162Read list of inodes to be excluded from the dump from the text file
163.IR file .
164The file
165.I file
166should be an ordinary file containing inode numbers separated by newlines.
167.TP
168.BI \-f " file"
169Write the backup to
170.IR file ;
171.I file
172may be a special device file like
173.I /dev/st0
174(a tape drive),
175.I /dev/rsd1c
176(a floppy disk drive), an ordinary file, or
177.I \-
178(the standard output). Multiple file names may be given as a single argument
179separated by commas. Each file will be used for one dump volume in the order
180listed; if the dump requires more volumes than the number of names given,
181the last file name will used for all remaining volumes after prompting for
182media changes. If the name of the file is of the form
183.I host:file
184or
185.I user@host:file
186.B dump
187writes to the named file on the remote host using
188.BR rmt (8).
189The default path name of the remote
190.BR rmt (8)
191program is
192.IR /etc/rmt ;
193this can be overridden by the environment variable
194.BR RMT .
195.TP
196.BI \-F " script"
197Run script at the end of each tape (except for the last one).
198The device name and the current volume number are passed on the
199command line. The script must return 0 if
200.B dump
201should continue without asking the user to change the tape, 1 if
202.B dump
203should continue but ask the user to change the tape. Any other exit code will
204cause
205.B dump
206to abort. For security reasons,
207.B dump
208reverts back to the real user ID and the real group ID before running the
209script.
210.TP
211.BI \-h " level"
212Honor the user
213.B nodump
214flag
215.B UF_NODUMP
216only for dumps at or above the given
217.IR level .
218The default honor level is 1, so that incremental backups omit such files but
219full backups retain them.
220.TP
221.BI \-I " nr errors"
222By default,
223.B dump
224will ignore the first 32 read errors on the file system before asking for
225operator intervention. You can change this using this flag to any value. This
226is useful when running
227.B dump
228on an active filesystem where read errors simply indicate an inconsistency
229between the mapping and dumping passes.
230.IP
231A value of 0 means that all read errors will be ignored.
232.TP
233.BI \-j "compression level"
234Compress every block to be written on the tape using bzlib library. This option
235will work only when dumping to a file or pipe or, when dumping to a tape drive,
236if the tape drive is capable of writing variable length blocks. You will need
237at least the 0.4b24 version of
238.B restore
239in order to extract compressed tapes. Tapes written using compression will not
240be compatible with the BSD tape format. The (optional) parameter specifies the
241compression level bzlib will use. The default compression level is 2. If the
242optional parameter is specified, there should be no white space between the
243option letter and the parameter.
244.TP
245.BI \-k
246Use Kerberos authentication to talk to remote tape servers. (Only available if
247this option was enabled when
248.B dump
249was compiled.)
250.TP
251.BI \-L " label"
252The user-supplied text string
253.I label
254is placed into the dump header, where tools like
255.BR restore (8)
256and
257.BR file (8)
258can access it. Note that this label is limited to be at most
259.B LBLSIZE
260(currently 16) characters, which must include the terminating \e0.
261.TP
262.BI \-m
263If this flag is specified,
264.B dump
265will optimise the output for inodes having been changed but not modified since
266the last dump ('changed' and 'modified' have the meaning defined in
267.BR stat (2)
268). For those inodes,
269.B dump
270will save only the metadata, instead of saving the entire inode contents.
271Inodes which are either directories or have been modified since the last dump
272are saved in a regular way. Uses of this flag must be consistent, meaning that
273either every dump in an incremental dump set have the flag, or no one has it.
274.IP
275Tapes written using such 'metadata only' inodes will not be compatible with the
276BSD tape format or older versions of
277.B restore.
278.TP
279.BI \-M
280Enable the multi-volume feature. The name specified with
281.B f
282is treated as a prefix and
283.B dump
284writes in sequence to
285.I <prefix>001, <prefix>002
286etc. This can be useful when dumping to files on an ext2 partition, in order to
287bypass the 2GB file size limitation.
288.TP
289.BI \-n
290Whenever
291.B dump
292requires operator attention, notify all operators in the group
293.B operator
294by means similar to a
295.BR wall (1).
296.TP
297.BI \-q
298Make
299.B dump
300abort immediately whenever operator attention is required, without prompting in
301case of write errors, tape changes etc.
302.TP
303.BI \-Q " file"
304Enable the Quick File Access support. Tape positions for each inode are stored
305into the file
306.I file
307which is used by
308.B restore
309(if called with parameter
310.B \-Q
311and the filename) to directly position the tape at the file
312.B restore
313is currently working on. This saves hours when restoring single files from
314large backups, saves the tapes and the drive's head.
315.IP
316It is recommended to set up the st driver to return logical tape positions
317rather than physical before calling
318.B dump/restore
319with parameter
320.BR \-Q .
321Since not all tape devices support physical tape positions those tape devices
322return an error during
323.B dump/restore
324when the st driver is set to the default physical setting. Please see the
325.BR st (4)
326man page, option
327.B MTSETDRVBUFFER
328, or the
329.BR mt (1)
330man page, on how to set the driver to return logical tape positions.
331.IP
332Before calling
333.B restore
334with parameter
335.BR \-Q ,
336always make sure the st driver is set to return the same type of tape position
337used during the call to
338.BR dump .
339Otherwise
340.B restore
341may be confused.
342.IP
343This option can be used when dumping to local tapes (see above) or to local
344files.
345.TP
346.BI \-s " feet"
347Attempt to calculate the amount of tape needed at a particular density. If this
348amount is exceeded,
349.B dump
350prompts for a new tape. It is recommended to be a bit conservative on this
351option. The default tape length is 2300 feet. Specifying the tape size
352overrides end-of-media detection.
353.TP
354.BI \-S
355Size estimate. Determine the amount of space that is needed to perform the dump
356without actually doing it, and display the estimated number of bytes it will
357take. This is useful with incremental dumps to determine how many volumes of
358media will be needed.
359.TP
360.BI \-T " date"
361Use the specified date as the starting time for the dump instead of the time
362determined from looking in
363.I __DUMPDATES__ .
364The format of
365.I date
366is the same as that of
367.BR ctime (3)
368followed by an rfc822 timezone specification: either a plus or minus sign
369followed by two digits for the number of hours and two digits for the minutes.
370For example, -0800 for eight hours west of Greenwich or +0230 for two hours
371and a half east of Greenwich. This timezone offset takes into account
372daylight savings time (if applicable to the timezone): UTC offsets
373when daylight savings time is in effect will be different than offsets
374when daylight savings time is not in effect. For backward
375compatibility, if no timezone is specified, a local time is assumed.
376This option is useful for automated dump scripts that wish to dump over a
377specific period of time. The
378.B \-T
379option is mutually exclusive from the
380.B \-u
381option.
382.TP
383.BI \-u
384Update the file
385.I __DUMPDATES__
386after a successful dump. The format of
387.I __DUMPDATES__
388is readable by people, consisting of one free format record per line:
389filesystem name, increment level and
390.BR ctime (3)
391format dump date followed by a rfc822 timezone specification (see the
392.B \-u
393option for details). If no timezone offset is specified, times are interpreted
394as local. Whenever the file is written, all dates in the file are converted
395to the local time zone, without changing the UTC times. There
396may be only one entry per filesystem at each level. The file
397.I __DUMPDATES__
398may be edited to change any of the fields, if necessary.
399.TP
400.BI \-v
401The
402.B \-v
403(verbose) makes
404.B dump
405to print extra information which could be helpful in debug sessions.
406.TP
407.BI \-W
408.B Dump
409tells the operator what file systems need to be dumped. This information is
410gleaned from the files
411.I __DUMPDATES__
412and
413.IR /etc/fstab .
414The
415.B \-W
416option causes
417.B dump
418to print out, for all file systems in
419.I __DUMPDATES__ ,
420and regognized file systems in
421.I /etc/mtab
422and
423.IR /etc/fstab .
424the most recent dump date and level, and highlights those that should be
425dumped. If the
426.B \-W
427option is set, all other options are ignored, and
428.B dump
429exits immediately.
430.TP
431.BI \-w
432Is like
433.BR \-W ,
434but prints only recognized filesystems in
435.I /etc/mtab
436and
437.I /etc/fstab
438which need to be dumped.
439.TP
440.BI \-y
441Compress every block to be written to the tape using the lzo library.
442This doesn't compress as well as the zlib library but it's much faster.
443This option will work only when dumping to a file or pipe or, when dumping to
444a tape drive, if the tape drive is capable of writing variable length blocks.
445You will need at least the 0.4b34 version of
446.B restore
447in order to extract compressed tapes. Tapes written using compression will not
448be compatible with the BSD tape format.
449.TP
450.BI \-z "compression level"
451Compress every block to be written on the tape using zlib library. This option
452will work only when dumping to a file or pipe or, when dumping to a tape drive,
453if the tape drive is capable of writing variable length blocks. You will need
454at least the 0.4b22 version of
455.B restore
456in order to extract compressed tapes. Tapes written using compression will not
457be compatible with the BSD tape format. The (optional) parameter specifies the
458compression level zlib will use. The default compression level is 2. If the
459optional parameter is specified, there should be no white space between the
460option letter and the parameter.
461.PP
462.B Dump
463requires operator intervention on these conditions: end of tape, end of dump,
464tape write error, tape open error or disk read error (if there is more than a
465threshold of nr errors). In addition to alerting all operators implied by the
466.B \-n
467key,
468.B dump
469interacts with the operator on dump's control terminal at times when
470.B dump
471can no longer proceed, or if something is grossly wrong. All questions
472.B dump
473poses
474.I must
475be answered by typing \*(lqyes\*(rq or \*(lqno\*(rq, appropriately.
476.PP
477Since making a dump involves a lot of time and effort for full dumps,
478.B dump
479checkpoints itself at the start of each tape volume. If writing that volume
480fails for some reason,
481.B dump
482will, with operator permission, restart itself from the checkpoint after the
483old tape has been rewound and removed, and a new tape has been mounted.
484.PP
485.B Dump
486tells the operator what is going on at periodic intervals, including usually
487low estimates of the number of blocks to write, the number of tapes it will
488take, the time to completion, and the time to the tape change. The output is
489verbose, so that others know that the terminal controlling
490.B dump
491is busy, and will be for some time.
492.PP
493In the event of a catastrophic disk event, the time required to restore all the
494necessary backup tapes or files to disk can be kept to a minimum by staggering
495the incremental dumps. An efficient method of staggering incremental dumps to
496minimize the number of tapes follows:
497.IP \(em
498Always start with a level 0 backup, for example:
499.RS 14
500.B /sbin/dump -0u -f /dev/st0 /usr/src
501.RE
502.IP
503This should be done at set intervals, say once a month or once every two months,
504and on a set of fresh tapes that is saved forever.
505.IP \(em
506After a level 0, dumps of active file systems are taken on a daily basis, using
507a modified Tower of Hanoi algorithm, with this sequence of dump levels:
508.RS 14
509.B 3 2 5 4 7 6 9 8 9 9 ...
510.RE
511.IP
512For the daily dumps, it should be possible to use a fixed number of tapes for
513each day, used on a weekly basis. Each week, a level 1 dump is taken, and the
514daily Hanoi sequence repeats beginning with 3. For weekly dumps, another fixed
515set of tapes per dumped file system is used, also on a cyclical basis.
516.PP
517After several months or so, the daily and weekly tapes should get rotated out
518of the dump cycle and fresh tapes brought in.
519.SH ENVIRONMENT
520.TP
521.B TAPE
522If no
523.B \-f
524option was specified,
525.B dump
526will use the device specified via
527.B TAPE
528as the dump device.
529.B TAPE
530may be of the form
531.IR tapename ,
532.IR host:tapename ,
533or
534.IR user@host:tapename .
535.TP
536.B RMT
537The environment variable
538.B RMT
539will be used to determine the pathname of the remote
540.BR rmt (8)
541program.
542.TP
543.B RSH
544.B Dump
545uses the contents of this variable to determine the name of the remote shell
546command to use when doing remote backups (rsh, ssh etc.). If this variable is
547not set,
548.BR rcmd (3)
549will be used, but only root will be able to do remote backups.
550.SH FILES
551.TP
552.I /dev/st0
553default tape unit to dump to
554.TP
555.I __DUMPDATES__
556dump date records
557.TP
558.I /etc/fstab
559dump table: file systems and frequency
560.TP
561.I /etc/mtab
562dump table: mounted file systems
563.TP
564.I /etc/group
565to find group
566.I operator
567.SH SEE ALSO
568.BR fstab (5),
569.BR restore (8),
570.BR rmt (8)
571.SH DIAGNOSTICS
572Many, and verbose.
573.SH COMPATIBILITY
574The format of the
575.I __DUMPDATES__
576file has changed in release 0.4b34, however, the file will be read
577correctly with either pre-0.4b34 or 0.4b34 and later versions of
578.B dump
579provided that the machine on which
580.B dump
581is run did not change timezones (which should be a fairly rare occurence).
582.SH EXIT STATUS
583.B Dump
584exits with zero status on success. Startup errors are indicated with an exit
585code of 1; abnormal termination is indicated with an exit code of 3.
586.SH BUGS
587It might be considered a bug that this version of dump can only handle ext2/3
588filesystems. Specifically, it does not work with FAT filesystems.
589.PP
590Fewer than 32 read errors (change this with
591.BR \-I )
592on the filesystem are ignored. If noticing read errors is important, the output
593from dump can be parsed to look for lines that contain the text 'read error'.
594.PP
595When a read error occurs,
596.B dump
597prints out the corresponding physical disk block and sector number and the
598ext2/3 logical block number. It doesn't print out the corresponing file name or
599even the inode number. The user has to use
600.BR debugfs (8),
601commands
602.B ncheck
603and
604.B icheck
605to translate the
606.B ext2blk
607number printed out by
608.B dump
609into an inode number, then into a file name.
610.PP
611Each reel requires a new process, so parent processes for reels already written
612just hang around until the entire tape is written.
613.PP
614The estimated number of tapes is not correct if compression is on.
615.PP
616It would be nice if
617.B dump
618knew about the dump sequence, kept track of the tapes scribbled on, told the
619operator which tape to mount when, and provided more assistance for the
620operator running
621.BR restore .
622.PP
623.B Dump
624cannot do remote backups without being run as root, due to its security history.
625Presently, it works if you set it setuid (like it used to be), but this might
626constitute a security risk. Note that you can set
627.B RSH
628to use a remote shell program instead.
629.SH AUTHOR
630The
631.B dump/restore
632backup suite was ported to Linux's Second Extended File System by Remy Card
633<card@Linux.EU.Org>. He maintained the initial versions of
634.B dump
635(up and including 0.4b4, released in january 1997).
636.PP
637Starting with 0.4b5, the new maintainer is Stelian Pop <stelian@popies.net>.
638.SH AVAILABILITY
639The
640.B dump/restore
641backup suite is available from <http://dump.sourceforge.net>
642.SH HISTORY
643A
644.B dump
645command appeared in
646.B Version 6 AT&T UNIX.