NAME
fsarchiver - filesystem archiver
DESCRIPTION
fsarchiver is a system tool that allows you to save the contents of a
filesystem to a compressed archive file. The file-system can be
restored on a partition which has a different size and it can be
restored on a different file-system. Unlike tar/dar, FSArchiver also
creates the filesystem when it extracts the data to partitions.
Everything is checksummed in the archive in order to protect the data.
If the archive is corrupt, you just lose the current file, not the
whole archive.
LINKS
Official project homepage:
http://www.fsarchiver.org
Quick Start Guide:
http://www.fsarchiver.org/QuickStart
Forums where to ask questions:
http://www.fsarchiver.org/forums/
Report a bug:
http://www.fsarchiver.org/forums/viewforum.php?f=17
SYNOPSIS
fsarchiver [ options ] savefs archive filesystem ...
fsarchiver [ options ] restfs archive
id=n,dest=filesystem[,mkfs=fstype] ...
fsarchiver [ options ] savedir archive directory ...
fsarchiver [ options ] restdir archive destination
fsarchiver [ options ] archinfo archive
fsarchiver [ options ] probe [detailed]
COMMANDS
savefs Save filesystems to archive.
restfs Restore filesystems from archive. This overwrites the existing
data on filesystems. Zero-based index n indicates the part of
the archive to restore. Optionally, a filesystem may be
converted to fstype.
savedir
Save directories to archive (similar to a compressed tarball).
restdir
Restore data from archive which is not based on a filesystem to
destination.
archinfo
Show information about an existing archive file and its
contents.
probe Show list of filesystems detected on the disks.
OPTIONS
-h, --help
Show help and information about how to use fsarchiver with
examples.
-V, --version
Show program version and exit.
-v, --verbose
Verbose mode (can be used several times to increase the level of
details). The details will be printed to the console.
-o, --overwrite
Overwrite the archive if it already exists instead of failing.
-d, --debug
Debug mode (can be used several times to increase the level of
details). The details will be written in
/var/log/fsarchiver.log.
-A, --allow-rw-mounted
Allow to save a filesystem which is mounted in read-write (live
backup). By default fsarchiver fails with an error if the
partition if mounted in read-write mode which allows
modifications to be done on the filesystem during the backup.
Modifications can drive to inconsistencies in the backup. Using
lvm snapshots is the recommended way to make backups since it
will provide consistency, but it is only available for
filesystems which are on LVM logical-volumes.
-a, --allow-no-acl-xattr
Allow to run savefs when partition is mounted without the
acl/xattr options. By default fsarchiver fails with an error if
the partition is mounted in such a way that the ACL and
Extended-Attributes are not readable. These attributes would not
be saved and then such attributes could be lost. If you know
what you don't need ACL and Extended-Attributes to be preserved
then it's safe to run fsarchiver with that option.
-e pattern, --exclude=pattern
Exclude files and directories that match that pattern. The
pattern can contains shell asterisks such as * and ?, and the
pattern may be either a simple file/dir name or an absolute
file/dir path. You must use quotes around the pattern each time
you use wildcards, else it would be interpreted by the shell.
The wildcards must be interpreted by fsarchiver. See examples
below for more details about this option.
-L label, --label=label
Set the label of the archive: it's just a comment about the
contents. It can be used to remember a particular thing about
the archive or the state of the filesystem for instance.
-z level, --compress=level
Valid compression levels are between 1 (very fast) and 9 (very
good). The memory requirement increases a lot with the best
compression levels, and it's multiplied by the number of
compression threads (option -j). Level 9 is considered as an
extreme compression level and requires an huge amount of memory
to run. For more details please read this page:
http://www.fsarchiver.org/Compression
-s mbsize, --split=mbsize
Split the archive into several files of mbsize megabytes each.
-j count, --jobs=count
Create more than one compression thread. Useful on multi-core
CPUs. By default fsarchiver will only use one compression
thread (-j 1) and then only one logical processor will be used
for compression. You should use that option if you have a
multi-core CPU or more than one physical CPU on your computer.
The typical way to use this option is to specify the number of
logical processors available so that all the processing power is
used to compress the archive very quickly. You may also want to
use all the logical processors but one for that task so that the
system stays responsive for other applications.
-c password, --cryptpass=password
Encrypt/decrypt data in archive. Password length: 6 to 64 chars.
EXAMPLES
save only one filesystem (/dev/sda1) to an archive:
fsarchiver savefs /data/myarchive1.fsa /dev/sda1
save two filesystems (/dev/sda1 and /dev/sdb1) to an archive:
fsarchiver savefs /data/myarchive2.fsa /dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1
restore the first filesystem from an archive (first = number 0):
fsarchiver restfs /data/myarchive2.fsa id=0,dest=/dev/sda1
restore the second filesystem from an archive (second = number 1):
fsarchiver restfs /data/myarchive2.fsa id=1,dest=/dev/sdb1
restore two filesystems from an archive (number 0 and 1):
fsarchiver restfs /data/arch2.fsa id=0,dest=/dev/sda1
id=1,dest=/dev/sdb1
restore a filesystem from an archive and convert it to reiserfs:
fsarchiver restfs /data/myarchive1.fsa
id=0,dest=/dev/sda1,mkfs=reiserfs
save the contents of /usr/src/linux to an archive (similar to tar):
fsarchiver savedir /data/linux-sources.fsa /usr/src/linux
save a /dev/sda1 to an archive split into volumes of 680MB:
fsarchiver savefs -s 680 /data/myarchive1.fsa /dev/sda1
save a filesystem and exclude all files/dirs called 'pagefile.*'
fsarchiver savefs /data/myarchive.fsa /dev/sda1 --exclude='pagefile.*'
exclude 'share' in both '/usr/share' and '/usr/local/share':
fsarchiver savefs /data/myarchive.fsa --exclude=share
absolute exclude valid for '/usr/share' but not '/usr/local/share'
fsarchiver savefs /data/myarchive.fsa --exclude=/usr/share
save a filesystem (/dev/sda1) to an encrypted archive:
fsarchiver savefs -c mypassword /data/myarchive1.fsa /dev/sda1
extract an archive made of simple files to /tmp/extract:
fsarchiver restdir /data/linux-sources.fsa /tmp/extract
show information about an archive and its file systems:
fsarchiver archinfo /data/myarchive2.fsa
WARNING
fsarchiver is still in development, don't use it for critical data yet.
AUTHOR
fsarchiver was written by Francois Dupoux. It is released under the
GPL2 (GNU General Public License version 2). This manpage was written
by Ilya Barygin and Francois Dupoux.
30 December 2009