MAN page from RedHat Other dump-0.3-8.i386.rpm

RESTORE

Section: Maintenance Commands (8)
Index
BSD mandoc
BSD 4

NAME

restore - restore files or file systems from backups made with dump

SYNOPSIS

restorekey[name ...]

DESCRIPTION

Therestorecommand performs the inverse function ofdump(8).A full backup of a file system may be restored andsubsequent incremental backups layered on top of it.Single files anddirectory subtrees may be restored from full or partialbackups.Restoreworks across a network;to do this see the-fflag described below.The actionsofrestoreare controlled by the givenkey whichis a string of characters containingat most one function letter and possiblyone or more function modifiers.Other arguments to the command are file or directorynames specifying the files that are to be restored.Unless thehkey is specified (see below),the appearance of a directory name refers tothe files and (recursively) subdirectories of that directory.

The function portion ofthe key is specified by one of the following letters:

r

Restore (rebuild a file system).The target file system should be made pristine withnewfs(8),mounted and theusercdNs'dinto the pristine file systembefore starting the restoration of the initial level 0 backup. If thelevel 0 restores successfully, therkey may be used to restoreany necessary incremental backups on top of the level 0.Therkey precludes an interactive file extraction and can bedetrimental to one's health if not used carefully (not to mentionthe disk). An example:

newfs /dev/rrp0g eaglemount /dev/rp0g /mntcd /mntrestore rf /dev/rst8

Note that restoreleaves a file restoresymtablein the root directory to pass information between incrementalrestore passes.This file should be removed when the last incremental has beenrestored.

Restore in conjunction withnewfs(8)anddump(8),may be used to modify file system parameterssuch as size or block size.

C

Restorereads the backup and compares its contents with files present on thedisk.It first changes its working directory to the root of the filesystemthat was dumped and compares the tape with the files in its newcurrent directory.This is useful to check that the backup is correct.

R

Restorerequests a particular tape of a multi volume set on which to restarta full restore(see therkey above).This is useful if the restore has been interrupted.

x

The named files are read from the given media.If a named file matches a directory whose contents are on the backupand thehkey is not specified,the directory is recursively extracted.The owner, modification time,and mode are restored (if possible).If no file argument is given,then the root directory is extracted,which results in the entire content of thebackup being extracted,unless thehkey has been specified.

t

The names of the specified files are listed if they occuron the backup.If no file argument is given,then the root directory is listed,which results in the entire content of thebackup being listed,unless thehkey has been specified.Note that thetkey replaces the function of the olddumpdir(8)program.

i

This mode allows interactive restoration of files from a dump.After reading in the directory information from the dump,restoreprovides a shell like interface that allows the user to movearound the directory tree selecting files to be extracted.The available commands are given below;for those commands that require an argument,the default is the current directory.

add [arg]: The current directory or specified argument is added to the list offiles to be extracted.If a directory is specified, then it and all its descendents areadded to the extraction list(unless thehkey is specified on the command line).Files that are on the extraction list are prepended with a ``*''when they are listed by ls
cd arg: Change the current working directory to the specified argument.
delete [arg]: The current directory or specified argument is deleted from the list offiles to be extracted.If a directory is specified, then it and all its descendents aredeleted from the extraction list(unless thehkey is specified on the command line).The most expedient way to extract most of the files from a directory is to add the directory to the extraction list and then deletethose files that are not needed.
extract: All the files that are on the extraction list are extractedfrom the dump.Restorewill ask which volume the user wishes to mount.The fastest way to extract a few files is tostart with the last volume, and work towards the first volume.
help: List a summary of the available commands.
ls [arg]: List the current or specified directory.Entries that are directories are appended with a ``/''.Entries that have been marked for extraction are prepended with a ``*''.If the verbose key is set the inode number of each entry is also listed.
pwd: Print the full pathname of the current working directory.
quit: Restore immediately exits,even if the extraction list is not empty.
setmodes: All the directories that have been added to the extraction listhave their owner, modes, and times set;nothing is extracted from the dump.This is useful for cleaning up after a restore has been prematurely aborted.
verbose: The sense of the vkey is toggled.When set, the verbose key causes the lscommand to list the inode numbers of all entries.It also causesrestoreto print out information about each file as it is extracted.

The following characters may be used in addition to the letterthat selects the function desired.

b

The next argument to restoreis used as the block size of the media (in kilobytes).If the-boption is not specified,restoretries to determine the media block size dynamically.

D

The next argument to restoreis used as the filesystem name used by the-Coption in its comparison.

f

The next argument to restoreis used as the name of the archive insteadof/dev/rmt? . If the name of the file is of the form``host:file'' restorereads from the named file on the remote host usingrmt(8).If the name of the file is`-' restorereads from standard input.Thus,dump(8)andrestorecan be used in a pipeline to dump and restore a file systemwith the command

dump 0f - /usr | (cd /mnt; restore xf -)

h

Restoreextracts the actual directory, rather than the files that it references.This prevents hierarchical restoration of complete subtreesfrom the dump.

m

Restorewill extract by inode numbers rather than by file name.This is useful if only a few files are being extracted,and one wants to avoid regenerating the complete pathnameto the file.

N

Restorewill not extract files. It will only print the file names.

s

The next argument torestoreis a number whichselects the file on a multi-file dump tape. File numberingstarts at 1.

T

The next argument torestoreis a directory to use for the storage of temporary files.The default value is /tmp.This option is most useful when restoring files after havingbooted from a floppy. There might be little or no space on thefloppy filesystem, but another source of space might exist.

v

Normallyrestoredoes its work silently.Thev(verbose)key causes it to type the name of each file it treatspreceded by its file type.

y

Restorewill not ask whether it should abort the restore if it gets an error.It will always try to skip over the bad block(s) and continue asbest it can.

DIAGNOSTICS

Complaints about bad key characters.

Complaints if it gets a read error.If yhas been specified, or the user responds`y',restorewill attempt to continue the restore.

If a backup was made using more than one tape volume,restorewill notify the user when it is time to mount the next volume.If thexorikey has been specified,restorewill also ask which volume the user wishes to mount.The fastest way to extract a few files is tostart with the last volume, and work towards the first volume.

There are numerous consistency checks that can be listed byrestore Most checks are self-explanatory or can ``never happen''.Common errors are given below.

Converting to new file system format.: A dump tape created from the old file system has been loaded.It is automatically converted to the new file system format.
<filename>: not found on tape: The specified file name was listed in the tape directory,but was not found on the tape.This is caused by tape read errors while looking for the file,and from using a dump tape created on an active file system.
expected next file <inumber>, got <inumber>: A file that was not listed in the directory showed up.This can occur when using a dump created on an active file system.
Incremental dump too low: When doing incremental restore,a dump that was written before the previous incremental dump,or that has too low an incremental level has been loaded.
Incremental dump too high: When doing incremental restore,a dump that does not begin its coverage where the previous incremental dump left off,or that has too high an incremental level has been loaded.
Tape read error while restoring <filename>
Tape read error while skipping over inode <inumber>
Tape read error while trying to resynchronize: A tape (or other media) read error has occurred.If a file name is specified,then its contents are probably partially wrong.If an inode is being skipped or the tape is trying to resynchronize,then no extracted files have been corrupted,though files may not be found on the tape.
resync restore, skipped <num> blocks: After a dump read error, restoremay have to resynchronize itself.This message lists the number of blocks that were skipped over.

FILES

/dev/rmt?: the default tape drive
/tmp/rstdir*: file containing directories on the tape.
/tmp/rstmode*: owner, mode, and time stamps for directories.
./restoresymtable: information passed between incremental restores.

BUGS

Restorecan get confused when doing incremental restores fromdump that were made on active file systems.

A level zero dump must be done after a full restore.Because restore runs in user code,it has no control over inode allocation;thus a full dump must be done to get a new set of directoriesreflecting the new inode numbering,even though the contents of the files is unchanged.

The Linux port ofrestoreis not able yet to restore multi-volume backups.

HISTORY

Therestorecommand appeared inBSD 4.2

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