on solaris best utility to copy a file system?

Applications Filesystems, Disks and Memory
1

Hi,

  • on a solaris box what is the best utility to copy a whole file system from one place to other? - the aim of the operation is to place the contents of
    the whole file system to other file system within the discs
    cp ? - cpio? - tar?

  • what about file systemes containing symbolic links ? we want to copy the link but not the aim pointed by the link

thanks for help

Jakez

2

Jakez, there really isn't a "best" way. There are several ways. All of these techniques (and I'll include pax) duplicate a directory hierarchy. If you wanted to copy /usr but /usr/local is a separate file system that shouldn't be copied, then you probably need to use cpio. But cpio will fall down if a file name has an embedded newline character. Each technique has different strengths and weaknesses.

I like to use tar. tar will duplicate a symlink. If the symlink is relative this may or may not work. There is no perfect solution to all symlinks.