FSARCHIVER(8)

NAME
fsarchiver - filesystem archiver

DESCRIPTION
fsarchiver is a system tool that allows you to save the contents of a filesystem to a compressed archive file. The filesystem contents can be restored on a device which has a different size and it can be restored on a different filesystem. Unlike tar/dar, fsarchiver also creates the filesystem when it extracts the data to devices. Everything is checksummed in the archive in order to protect the data. If the archive is corrupt, you just lose the current file, not the whole archive.

LINKS

  Official project homepage:
http://www.fsarchiver.org

  Quick Start guide:
http://www.fsarchiver.org/quickstart/

  Forums where to ask questions:
http://www.fsarchiver.org/forums/

  Git repository:
https://github.com/fdupoux/fsarchiver

  Report a bug:
https://github.com/fdupoux/fsarchiver/issues

SYNOPSIS
fsarchiver [ options ] savefs archive device ...

fsarchiver [ options ] restfs archive id=n,dest=device[,mkfs=fstype,mkfsopt=options,label=newlabel,uuid=newuuid] ...

fsarchiver [ options ] savedir archive directory ...

fsarchiver [ options ] restdir archive destination

fsarchiver [ options ] archinfo archive

fsarchiver [ options ] probe [detailed]

COMMANDS

savefs
    Save device filesystem to archive.

restfs
    Restore filesystems from archive. This overwrites the existing data on device. Zero-based index n indicates the part of the archive to restore. Optionally, a filesystem may be converted to fstype and extra mkfs options specified. newlabel and newuuid override values stored in the archive.

savedir
    Save directories to archive (similar to a compressed tarball).

restdir
    Restore data from archive which is not based on a filesystem to destination.

archinfo
    Show information about an existing archive file and its contents.

probe
    Show list of filesystems detected on the disks.

OPTIONS

-h, --help
    Show help and information about how to use fsarchiver with examples.

-V, --version
    Show program version and exit.

-v, --verbose
    Verbose mode (can be used several times to increase the level of details). The details will be printed to the console.

-o, --overwrite
    Overwrite the archive if it already exists instead of failing.

-d, --debug
    Debug mode (can be used several times to increase the level of details). The details will be written in /var/log/fsarchiver.log.

-x, --experimental
    Allow to save filesystems which support is considered experimental in fsarchiver.

-A, --allow-rw-mounted
    Allow to save a filesystem which is mounted in read-write (live backup). By default fsarchiver fails with an error if the device is mounted in read-write mode which allows modifications to be done on the filesystem during the backup. Modifications can drive to inconsistencies in the backup. Using LVM snapshots is the recommended way to make backups since it will provide consistency, but it is only available for filesystems which are on LVM logical volumes.

-a, --allow-no-acl-xattr
    Allow to save a filesystem when ACLs and extended attributes are not supported (or are disabled) by the kernel. By default fsarchiver fails with an error if it cannot access ACLs and extended attributes, since they would not be saved. If you do not need ACLs and extended attributes preserved then it is safe to use this option.

-e pattern, --exclude=pattern
    Exclude files and directories that match specified pattern. The pattern can contain shell wildcards such as * and ? or may be either a simple file/dir name or an absolute file/dir path. You must use quotes around the pattern each time you use wildcards, else it would be interpreted by the shell. The wildcards must be interpreted by fsarchiver. See examples below for more details about this option.

-L label, --label=label
    Set the label of the archive: it is just a comment about its contents. It can be used to remember a particular thing about the archive or the state of the filesystem for instance.

-z level, --compress=level
    Legacy compression levels are between 0 (very fast) and 9 (very good). The memory requirement increases a lot with the best compression levels, and it is multiplied by the number of compression threads (option -j). Level 9 is considered as an extreme compression level and requires an huge amount of memory to run. For more details please read this page: http://www.fsarchiver.org/compression/

-Z level, --zstd=level
    Zstd compression levels are between 1 (very fast) and 22 (very good). The memory requirement increases a lot with the best compression levels, and it is multiplied by the number of compression threads (option -j). Levels above 20 are considered as extreme compression levels and requires an huge amount of memory to run. For more details please read this page: http://www.fsarchiver.org/compression/

-s mbsize, --split=mbsize
    Split the archive into several files of mbsize megabytes each.

-j count, --jobs=count
    Create more than one (de)compression thread. Useful on multi-core CPUs. By default fsarchiver will only use one (de)compression thread (-j 1) and then only one logical processor will be used for the task. You should use this option if you have a multi-core CPU or more than one physical CPU on your computer. The typical way to use it is to specify the number of logical processors available so that all the processing power is used to (de)compress the archive very quickly. You may also want to use all logical processors but one so that your system stays responsive for other applications.

-c password, --cryptpass=password
    Encrypt/decrypt data in archive. Password length: 6 to 64 characters. You can either provide a real password or a dash (-c -). Use the dash if you do not want to provide the password in the command line. It will be prompted in the terminal instead.

EXAMPLES

  save only one filesystem (/dev/sda1) to an archive:
fsarchiver savefs /data/myarchive1.fsa /dev/sda1

  save two filesystems (/dev/sda1 and /dev/sdb1) to an archive:
fsarchiver savefs /data/myarchive2.fsa /dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1

  restore the first filesystem from an archive (first = number 0):
fsarchiver restfs /data/myarchive2.fsa id=0,dest=/dev/sda1

  restore the second filesystem from an archive (second = number 1):
fsarchiver restfs /data/myarchive2.fsa id=1,dest=/dev/sdb1

  restore two filesystems from an archive (number 0 and 1):
fsarchiver restfs /data/arch2.fsa id=0,dest=/dev/sda1 id=1,dest=/dev/sdb1

  restore a filesystem from an archive and convert it to reiserfs:
fsarchiver restfs /data/myarchive1.fsa id=0,dest=/dev/sda1,mkfs=reiserfs

  restore a filesystem from an archive and specify extra mkfs options:
fsarchiver restfs /data/myarchive1.fsa id=0,dest=/dev/sda1,mkfs=ext4,mkfsopt="-I 256"

  restore a filesystem from an archive and specify a new filesystem label:
fsarchiver restfs /data/myarchive1.fsa id=0,dest=/dev/sda1,label=root

  restore a filesystem from an archive and specify a new filesystem UUID:
fsarchiver restfs /data/myarchive1.fsa id=0,dest=/dev/sda1,uuid=5f6e5f4f-dc2a-4dbd-a6ea-9ca997cde75e

  save the contents of /usr/src/linux to an archive (similar to tar):
fsarchiver savedir /data/linux-sources.fsa /usr/src/linux

  save a filesystem (/dev/sda1) to an archive split into volumes of 680MB:
fsarchiver savefs -s 680 /data/myarchive1.fsa /dev/sda1

  save a filesystem and exclude all files/dirs called 'pagefile.*':
fsarchiver savefs /data/myarchive.fsa /dev/sda1 --exclude='pagefile.*'

  generic exclude for 'share' such as '/usr/share' and '/usr/local/share':
fsarchiver savefs /data/myarchive.fsa --exclude=share

  absolute exclude valid for '/usr/share' but not for '/usr/local/share':
fsarchiver savefs /data/myarchive.fsa --exclude=/usr/share

  save a filesystem (/dev/sda1) to an encrypted archive:
fsarchiver savefs -c mypassword /data/myarchive1.fsa /dev/sda1

  same as before but prompt for password in the terminal:
fsarchiver savefs -c - /data/myarchive1.fsa /dev/sda1

  extract an archive made of simple files to /tmp/extract:
fsarchiver restdir /data/linux-sources.fsa /tmp/extract

  show information about an archive and its filesystems:
fsarchiver archinfo /data/myarchive2.fsa

WARNING
fsarchiver is considered stable for Linux filesystems such as EXT4 and XFS but unstable for NTFS.

AUTHOR
fsarchiver was written by Francois Dupoux. It is released under the GPL2 (GNU General Public License version 2). This manpage was written by Ilya Barygin and Francois Dupoux.