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Re: volume shadow copy


Matej Pisek <matej.pisek <at> crossnet.si> writes:
> I'm using ElkarBackup to copy backup data from servers. A few days ago a 
> wrote a bash script to also make volume shadow copy via vssadmin... and 
> everything works but ElkarBackup to access 
> /proc/sys/Devices/HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy... cause it recognizes iz as 
> symlink.
> I can't do anything to change rsynk at ElkarBackup to fallow symlinks.
> So I thought... is it possible to mount a block device of 
> /proc/sys/Devices/HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy somewhere?!?!

When using rsync and similar methods, you would normally exclude dirs:
/dev /media /mnt /proc /run /sys /tmp
and depending on the system, perhaps also /var/{run,swap,tmp}, possibly
others, and dirs/files lost+found. 
For Cygwin also exclude the target of link /proc/cygdrive output as results
of readlink /proc/cygdrive or realpath /proc/cygdrive: normally /cygdrive.

These directories are either dynamic or contain dynamic information about
execution of instances of processes currently running on the system, and are
not very useful on backups. 

Symlinks and hard links, also Windows Symbolic, Hard, and Soft
links/junctions/reparse points should either be copied as is or excluded
from the backup, as they can either either duplicate other files or result
in accessing other directories, devices, network shares or drives which
could pull in large volumes of data, as could Unix mount points like /mnt,
/media, etc.

A backup process should include recording details about these excluded
entries, and a restore process should recreate these entries as of when they
were backed up, perhaps in a backed up directory used to control or augment
the backup/restore process. 



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