On Fri, 5 Jun 1998, Bob Hilliard wrote: : Rick Macdonald <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: : > > I like "cp -ax" for this task, because of its shortness. : > : > I told a friend to use "cp -a". I forgot about "-x", but he only has one : > filesystem. : > : > However, the copy hung on the file /proc/kmsg. Would the -x have avoided : > this? In the end, he had to use tar. : : cp -ax would have skipped /proc completely. Actually, your : friend has more than one file system. proc is a virtual file system, : mounted on the mount point /proc. : : When you copy an entire file system with cp -ax it skips any : separate file systems, and doesn't even copy the mount points. So : after copying, you have to check the directories that contained the : mount points, and create them in the new system. I prefer to unmount : as many separate files systems as possible before running cp -ax.
I realise this is practically a religious debate, but I'm going to mention this anyway. I don't know whether `cp -ax' skips the mount point or not; I never use cp -ax. I use two commands found on every debian system: `find . -xdev -print | cpio -padm /target' This command should be executed from the source directory. So, if you wanted to copy the root filesystem to another partition (currently mounted on /mnt), you would: cd / find . -xdev -print | cpio -padm /mnt Works every time. Handles device files, doesn't recurse down other devices, but DOES copy the mount points. I'm sure this will start a flame war; it always does. I'm not interested in participating, thanks. -- Nathan Norman MidcoNet - 410 South Phillips Avenue - Sioux Falls, SD 57104 mailto://[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.midco.net finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP Key: (0xA33B86E9) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
