Re: Is /etc/dumpdates still useful?

[Paul Goyette <paul%whooppee.com@localhost>]

On Sun, 6 Oct 2024, Paul Goyette wrote:

> With the ability to use logicall disk names instead of hardware names,
> it seems to me that /etc/dumpdates needsd to be changed.
>
> The problem comes when a file-system (for rexample, /var) "moves" from
> one hardware drive to another.  This can easily happen if a new drive is
> added to the system. (Perhaps a USB hard drive which may or may not be
> present at boot time?)  A previous dump of /var might have occurred when
> /var was mounted from /dev/dk1, but a current dump would dump from
> /dev/dk2.  There is no clue in /etc/dumpdates to tie the different
> entries together.
>
> Is there some sensible way to update dump(8) to use the file-system name
> rather than the physical drive name?  ie, record the dump of /var rather
> than of /dev/dkn ?

Well, I did a little bit of reading in the dump(8) man page, and
I found the -U option.  This allows me to specify what to put into
/etc/dumpdate's firrst field, overriding the /dev/dk<n> default:

	dump -U root ... /

Ask, and ye shall receive.  :-)


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