GoboLinux - Fun with File System Hierarchy [LWN.net]

GoboLinux - Fun with File System Hierarchy

Posted Jan 22, 2004 11:49 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304)
In reply to: GoboLinux - Fun with File System Hierarchy by ptr
Parent article: GoboLinux - Fun with File System Hierarchy

Unfortunately, sometimes symlinks themselves contain information in their target, thus you cannot simple use "follow symlinks" in your backups.

Well, no: you really have to back up the symlinks *as symlinks*, and similarly for all other non-regular filetypes (or the first time you hit a non-connected FIFO, or /dev/zero, you'll never come back).

Every halfway-competent backup program does this, even `cp -a'.

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GoboLinux - Fun with File System Hierarchy

Posted Jan 22, 2004 17:40 UTC (Thu) by rschroev (subscriber, #4164) [Link]

If I understand you correctly, that would mean you cannot backup your config files by making a copy of /etc - you would end up with a bunch of symlinks instead of the data itself.

In that case, I prefer the standard way of doing things. The names could have be chosen better and the difference between the purpose of some directories is sometimes not clear, but I like how it separates static data (binaries, documentation) from configuration and from other variable data and from user data.