Hi guys,

Im kinda new here and i would like to know if its safe to backup root partition with cpio. I need to do an online backup of running system so i can't unmount partition or so to dump it or dd it.
Is it safe? is there any chance the backup would be inconsistent or so? What is the worst what could happend? will the files used by a running system backup correctly?
Running opensuse 11.3 and some basic daemons like ftp,www server...

BTW i did try search with tag "cpio" but there was not such a topic.

Thanks

You don't want directories like /proc /sys /dev from a running system. /proc is the ram. You don't want to use cpio, unless you have a special reason to. Are you reading your grandfather's guide to unix? :-)

yeah instead use rsync because it is like a copy utility but will let you exclude the latter folders you don't to backup

It's not a reliable way to backup. Since files will be being changed, the backup may not be in a consistent state. It shouldn't actually affect the running system (as long as you don't try and backup your backup in an infinite recursion!), but problems could come if you need to do a full restore.

If you need to backup a running system, you need a means to take a "snapshot" of said system. LVM can do this, as can some filesystems, and virtual machines. But these are things you need to set up at install, and I'm guessing you haven't.

Thank you guys for the replies. Looks like am at the dead end.
I got basic partitions not LVM, so i will copy all files and then i will pray that no errors will appear