[OT] Understanding Linux backup limitations

[Smoot Carl-Mitchell]

On Fri, 2008-09-12 at 16:08 -0400, Bart Silverstrim wrote:

> Primarily I believe it's the consistency of image problem. You can't 
> have a filesystem reliably cloned without locking all files over time or 
> having a mechanism in place to verify the state of the files.

You do not have to unmount the filesystem.  It just needs to be
quiescent.  (e.g. no writes to the filesystem during the cloning
process). Unmounting just insures the filesystem is inactive and the
clone will be an exact block for block copy.

LVM appears to have snapshot capability, similar to Veritas which could
be used to clone an active filesystem.  I have not used it personally,
but others may have experience using it to create filesystem clones.
-- 
Smoot Carl-Mitchell
System/Network Architect
smoot at tic.com
+1 480 922 7313
cell: +1 602 421 9005