On Sat, 24 Jan 1998, Santiago Vila Doncel wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > > On Fri, 23 Jan 1998, Ulisses Alonso Camaro wrote: > > I would like to know why cp -aR is not useful to replicate a disk > > Since cp -a [*] is useful to replicate a disk, I think you are really > asking "I would like to know why some people seem to prefer tar or cpio > to replicate a disk". > > Well, I don't know the answer, but in either case, you have often to be > careful to avoid infinite recursive copying: > > cd / > mount /dev/somedisk /mnt > cp -a * /mnt > > See the mess? ( /mnt/mnt/mnt/... )
You could add the -x switch. This skips subdirectories that are not on the same filesystem as the directories you are copying. cp -ax / /mnt would only copy the root filesystem to /mnt and not things like /proc, an accidentally mounted floppy or a /usr which is on a different filesystem. If /usr is on a different filesystem, simply do cp -ax / /usr /mnt to copy both filesystems to /mnt . Remco -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
