Re: archive files

[Jonathan Dowland <jon+debian-user@dow.land>]

On Fri, May 05, 2023 at 12:07:09AM -0700, David Christensen wrote:
> How does cpio(1) compare?
> How about dump(8) and restore(8)?

I'd note that these (like tar) are both very old tools, and there are
many more modern ones perhaps worthy of consideration too. (which; is
left as an exercise for the reader)

> AIUI dd(1) produces identical backup/ restore results.  Do you know
> otherwise?

It does so by cloning the device underneath the filesystem, and thus,
the filesystem on top (and all the 'gaps' between); so yes, using dd(1)
can preserve any metadata that you care about. But the result is very
unwieldy to store or access, and you have to be sure the filesystem is
in a ready state to be cloned or information that has not hit the disk
(in data structures in memory or buffer cache) could be lost, so it's
not generally recommended as a tool to produce a file archive.

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👱🏻	Jonathan Dowland
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