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I created a lvm snapshot like so:

lvcreate -L 5G -s -n root-snapshot /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00

Then I mounted the snapshot like so:

mount /dev/VolGroup00/root-snapshot /mnt/root-snapshot/

Now, when I see what's in the dev tree in the snapshot, almost everything is missing except for two items:

[root@server1 ~]# ls /mnt/root-snapshot/dev
mapper  VolGroup00

And there is nothing inside proc. Why is this? I know proc is a virtual fs, but when the snapshot was taken, the system was running and hence there was a lot of stuff in proc and dev... why are they missing in the snapshot.

I particularly needed:

/dev/console
/dev/initctl
/dev/null
/dev/zero

for my backup.

Edit: mount actually reveals that proc is mounted fs on / But what about dev... mount does not show dev being mounted outside of LVM?

/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00 on / type ext3 (rw)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
/dev/sda1 on /boot type ext3 (rw)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
none on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw)
sunrpc on /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs type rpc_pipefs (rw)
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-root--snapshot on /mnt/root-snapshot type ext3 (rw)

3 Answers 3

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They are not real filesystems, and not part of the root filesystem that you created a snapshot on.

But lets ignore that. I am guessing you are asking about the /proc and /dev mounts because you want to chroot into your snapshot? Or the backup tools run within the snapshot directory? If so, why not simply do a bind-mount in addition to mounting the snapshot.

mount /dev/VolGroup00/root-snapshot /mnt/root-snapshot/
mount -o bind /dev/ /mnt/root-snapshot/dev/
mount -o bind /proc/ /mnt/root-snapshot/proc/

When you are ready to unmount your snapshot simply unmount /mnt/root-snapshot/dev/ and /mnt/root-snapshot/proc/ before unmounting /mnt/root-snapshot/

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  • awesome... thanks.. this is what I was looking for :)
    – Sharad
    Oct 27, 2011 at 21:52
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/proc and /dev are both virtual file systems that are not at all kept on the LVM volume (as the output of mount will confirm), therefore they are not included in an LVM snapshot.

Both are generated by the kernel at runtime, and there is no need to back them up to begin with.

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An LVM dump would only contain what is on that specific filesystem NOT on any other mounts. The /proc and perhaps /dev are mounted filesystem under root and the data thus is NOT contained within the LVM.

What you would have to do is to back them up specially with something like tar or cpio.

BTW, I would NEVER backup the /proc filesystem as there is nothing archival in it and you may end up with a huge number of process memory dumps.

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  • yes, you're right.. proc fs is indeed mounted under root... as revealed by mount. but dev is not. see my mount output in my original question. thanks
    – Sharad
    Oct 27, 2011 at 21:24
  • I have SuSE...here is the mount line: devtmpfs on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
    – mdpc
    Oct 27, 2011 at 22:09

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