Re: [Dump-users] Definition of dump levels?

[Stelian P. <st...@po...>]

Le samedi 05 janvier 2008 à 08:23 -0500, Scott Ehrlich a écrit :
> I've seen so many references to dump levels, but none of them, including 
> the man page, actually says what, specifically, each level covers.

Well, the man page says what each level covers pretty clearly:

   A level 0, full backup,  specified
   by  -0 guarantees the entire file system is copied 
   ...
   A  level  number  above  0,  incremental
   backup,  tells  dump to copy all files new or modified since the
   last dump of a lower level.

> For example, a level 0 would presumably back up everything. 

Yes.

>  But will it 
> still do so if I perform a level 0 today, update /etc/dumpdates, then 
> perform another level 0 just after, and no files have changed?

Yes.

> 
> What about the other levels?  What do they do?

level 0 = always full dump
level 1 = changed files since the last level 0
level 2 = changed files since the last level 0 _or_ 1
etc...

/etc/dumpdates is here just to record when the last level 0, last level
1 etc were performed. If this file is missing (or not updated), dump
acts as if the lowel-level dump was never performed. This means that a
'dump -5' for example will do a full dump is you haven't done a level 0,
1, 2, 3 or 4 at some time before.

Stelian.
-- 
Stelian Pop <st...@po...>