Advice on external backup of a Linux server.

[Felipe Alfaro Solana]

On 10 Feb 2005, at 19:26, Arthur Pemberton wrote:

>> LVM is setup by default on fc3 and RHEL4 when it is released. its a
>> better idea in the long term
>>
> I've done some reading, but I honestly can't see what makes it such a 
> better idea. I'm guessing I just haven't happened upon a situation 
> where I wished i had it.
> Got any practical scenarios, just out of curiousity.

LVM2 snapshots allow you to backup live filesystems. Usually, you 
shouldn't backup a live (i.e. mounted and being used) filesystem with 
utilities like "tar" and company, since they can't lock files being 
backed up to avoid changes made by running processes.

A LVM2 snapshot, however, guarantees consistency as it "takes an image" 
of the filesystem and freezes it which can be backed up to tape, or to 
remote storage without worrying about possible inconsistencies caused 
by running processed modifying data.