* T o n g mlist4suntong@yahoo.com [20080712 07:05]:
On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 22:15:57 +0200, Michael Prokop wrote:
Well, static devices can be found in /dev/.static/dev and if configured/used also in /lib/udev/devices.
What's really important are the null, zero, console and tty[0-9] devices which are all easy to generate/restore using MAKEDEV in case you lose them.
Thanks for the explanation mika. I was hoping that I can just backup those static devices, but I found both my /dev/.static/dev/ & /lib/udev/devices/ are empty. If I duplicate null, zero, console and tty[0-9] devices into /dev/.static/dev/ and back them up, would it works?
Just executing MAKEDEV will provide null, zero & CO for you. No need to copy them to /dev/.static/dev, though I'm wondering why your /dev/.static/dev/ is empty. Are you listing the content of the directory as user root ("ls -la /dev/.static/dev/")?
So basically it's not necessary to backup /dev as long as you know how to recover it ;) - but as /dev is usually less than 1MB size it won't hurt to place it in your backups as well. ;)
Yeah, 1MB is not that big. My worry was the portability. If I backup all devices in PC A, then restore them on PC B, what would happen?
Relevant are the core devices (as mentioned above) and the device for your rootfs ("mount | grep 'on / '"), the rest will be handled by udev and its tmpfs. If you just backup whole /dev you should be on the safe side.
regards, -mika-