1FSARCHIVER(8) System Manager's Manual FSARCHIVER(8)
2
6 fsarchiver - filesystem archiver
7
10 fsarchiver is a system tool that allows you to save the contents of a
11 filesystem to a compressed archive file. The filesystem contents can be
12 restored on a device which has a different size and it can be restored
13 on a different filesystem. Unlike tar/dar, fsarchiver also creates the
14 filesystem when it extracts the data to devices. Everything is check‐
15 summed in the archive in order to protect the data. If the archive is
16 corrupt, you just lose the current file, not the whole archive.
17
20 Official project homepage:
21 http://www.fsarchiver.org
22 Quick Start guide:
24 http://www.fsarchiver.org/quickstart/
25 Forums where to ask questions:
27 http://www.fsarchiver.org/forums/
28 Git repository:
30 https://github.com/fdupoux/fsarchiver
31 Report a bug:
33 https://github.com/fdupoux/fsarchiver/issues
34
37 fsarchiver [ options ] savefs archive device ...
38 fsarchiver [ options ] restfs archive
40 id=n,dest=device[,mkfs=fstype,mkf‐
41 sopt=options,label=newlabel,uuid=newuuid] ...
42 fsarchiver [ options ] savedir archive directory ...
44 fsarchiver [ options ] restdir archive destination
46 fsarchiver [ options ] archinfo archive
48 fsarchiver [ options ] probe [detailed]
50
53 savefs Save device filesystem to archive.
54 restfs Restore filesystems from archive. This overwrites the existing
56 data on device. Zero-based index n indicates the part of the
57 archive to restore. Optionally, a filesystem may be converted
58 to fstype and extra mkfs options specified. newlabel and newu‐
59 uid override values stored in the archive.
60 savedir
63 Save directories to archive (similar to a compressed tarball).
64 restdir
66 Restore data from archive which is not based on a filesystem to
67 destination.
68 archinfo
70 Show information about an existing archive file and its con‐
71 tents.
72 probe Show list of filesystems detected on the disks.
74
77 -h, --help
78 Show help and information about how to use fsarchiver with exam‐
79 ples.
80 -V, --version
82 Show program version and exit.
83 -v, --verbose
85 Verbose mode (can be used several times to increase the level of
86 details). The details will be printed to the console.
87 -o, --overwrite
89 Overwrite the archive if it already exists instead of failing.
90 -d, --debug
92 Debug mode (can be used several times to increase the level of
93 details). The details will be written in
94 /var/log/fsarchiver.log.
95 -x, --experimental
97 Allow to save filesystems which support is considered experimen‐
98 tal in fsarchiver.
99 -A, --allow-rw-mounted
101 Allow to save a filesystem which is mounted in read-write (live
102 backup). By default fsarchiver fails with an error if the device
103 is mounted in read-write mode which allows modifications to be
104 done on the filesystem during the backup. Modifications can
105 drive to inconsistencies in the backup. Using LVM snapshots is
106 the recommended way to make backups since it will provide con‐
107 sistency, but it is only available for filesystems which are on
108 LVM logical volumes.
109 -a, --allow-no-acl-xattr
111 Allow to save a filesystem when ACLs and extended attributes are
112 not supported (or are disabled) by the kernel. By default
113 fsarchiver fails with an error if it cannot access ACLs and
114 extended attributes, since they would not be saved. If you do
115 not need ACLs and extended attributes preserved then it is safe
116 to use this option.
117 -e pattern, --exclude=pattern
119 Exclude files and directories that match specified pattern. The
120 pattern can contain shell wildcards such as * and ? or may be
121 either a simple file/dir name or an absolute file/dir path. You
122 must use quotes around the pattern each time you use wildcards,
123 else it would be interpreted by the shell. The wildcards must be
124 interpreted by fsarchiver. See examples below for more details
125 about this option.
126 -L label, --label=label
128 Set the label of the archive: it is just a comment about its
129 contents. It can be used to remember a particular thing about
130 the archive or the state of the filesystem for instance.
131 -z level, --compress=level
133 Legacy compression levels are between 0 (very fast) and 9 (very
134 good). The memory requirement increases a lot with the best com‐
135 pression levels, and it is multiplied by the number of compres‐
136 sion threads (option -j). Level 9 is considered as an extreme
137 compression level and requires an huge amount of memory to run.
138 For more details please read this page:
139 http://www.fsarchiver.org/compression/
140 -Z level, --zstd=level
142 Zstd compression levels are between 1 (very fast) and 22 (very
143 good). The memory requirement increases a lot with the best com‐
144 pression levels, and it is multiplied by the number of compres‐
145 sion threads (option -j). Levels above 20 are considered as
146 extreme compression levels and requires an huge amount of memory
147 to run. For more details please read this page:
148 http://www.fsarchiver.org/compression/
149 -s mbsize, --split=mbsize
151 Split the archive into several files of mbsize megabytes each.
152 -j count, --jobs=count
154 Create more than one (de)compression thread. Useful on multi-
155 core CPUs. By default fsarchiver will only use one (de)compres‐
156 sion thread (-j 1) and then only one logical processor will be
157 used for the task. You should use this option if you have a
158 multi-core CPU or more than one physical CPU on your computer.
159 The typical way to use it is to specify the number of logical
160 processors available so that all the processing power is used to
161 (de)compress the archive very quickly. You may also want to use
162 all logical processors but one so that your system stays respon‐
163 sive for other applications.
164 -c password, --cryptpass=password
166 Encrypt/decrypt data in archive. Password length: 6 to 64 char‐
167 acters. You can either provide a real password or a dash (-c -).
168 Use the dash if you do not want to provide the password in the
169 command line. It will be prompted in the terminal instead.
170
173 save only one filesystem (/dev/sda1) to an archive:
174 fsarchiver savefs /data/myarchive1.fsa /dev/sda1
175 save two filesystems (/dev/sda1 and /dev/sdb1) to an archive:
177 fsarchiver savefs /data/myarchive2.fsa /dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1
178 restore the first filesystem from an archive (first = number 0):
180 fsarchiver restfs /data/myarchive2.fsa id=0,dest=/dev/sda1
181 restore the second filesystem from an archive (second = number 1):
183 fsarchiver restfs /data/myarchive2.fsa id=1,dest=/dev/sdb1
184 restore two filesystems from an archive (number 0 and 1):
186 fsarchiver restfs /data/arch2.fsa id=0,dest=/dev/sda1
187 id=1,dest=/dev/sdb1
188 restore a filesystem from an archive and convert it to reiserfs:
190 fsarchiver restfs /data/myarchive1.fsa id=0,dest=/dev/sda1,mkfs=reis‐
191 erfs
192 restore a filesystem from an archive and specify extra mkfs options:
194 fsarchiver restfs /data/myarchive1.fsa
195 id=0,dest=/dev/sda1,mkfs=ext4,mkfsopt="-I 256"
196 restore a filesystem from an archive and specify a new filesystem label:
198 fsarchiver restfs /data/myarchive1.fsa id=0,dest=/dev/sda1,label=root
199 restore a filesystem from an archive and specify a new filesystem UUID:
201 fsarchiver restfs /data/myarchive1.fsa
202 id=0,dest=/dev/sda1,uuid=5f6e5f4f-dc2a-4dbd-a6ea-9ca997cde75e
203 save the contents of /usr/src/linux to an archive (similar to tar):
205 fsarchiver savedir /data/linux-sources.fsa /usr/src/linux
206 save a filesystem (/dev/sda1) to an archive split into volumes of 680MB:
208 fsarchiver savefs -s 680 /data/myarchive1.fsa /dev/sda1
209 save a filesystem and exclude all files/dirs called 'pagefile.*':
211 fsarchiver savefs /data/myarchive.fsa /dev/sda1 --exclude='pagefile.*'
212 generic exclude for 'share' such as '/usr/share' and '/usr/local/share':
214 fsarchiver savefs /data/myarchive.fsa --exclude=share
215 absolute exclude valid for '/usr/share' but not for '/usr/local/share':
217 fsarchiver savefs /data/myarchive.fsa --exclude=/usr/share
218 save a filesystem (/dev/sda1) to an encrypted archive:
220 fsarchiver savefs -c mypassword /data/myarchive1.fsa /dev/sda1
221 same as before but prompt for password in the terminal:
223 fsarchiver savefs -c - /data/myarchive1.fsa /dev/sda1
224 extract an archive made of simple files to /tmp/extract:
226 fsarchiver restdir /data/linux-sources.fsa /tmp/extract
227 show information about an archive and its filesystems:
229 fsarchiver archinfo /data/myarchive2.fsa
230
233 fsarchiver is considered stable for Linux filesystems such as EXT4 and
234 XFS but unstable for NTFS.
235
238 fsarchiver was written by Francois Dupoux. It is released under the
239 GPL2 (GNU General Public License version 2). This manpage was written
240 by Ilya Barygin and Francois Dupoux.
241 30 December 2009 FSARCHIVER(8)