# Verify backup integrity.



## sixtydoses (Dec 18, 2009)

Hi,

I'm backing up my file systems using the `dump` utility and am wondering if there's a way for me to check the integrity of the dump files.

Backing up 3 file systems, 2 of them with the size of around 2gb - 4gb, looked pretty good, no error nor warning. The last one though, which is around 100gb in size(backup and compress), had this came up:


```
swap_pager indefinite wait buffer bufobj
```

Sorry, didn't manage to capture the whole output. Been reading about it but still am not sure if this is affecting the dump process. Would be nice if I could check if the dump file is good.

Thanks in advance.


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## dennylin93 (Dec 18, 2009)

Try doing a restore with the dump file?


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## sixtydoses (Dec 18, 2009)

I don't have that much of space left.


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## DutchDaemon (Dec 18, 2009)

I guess you could try getting a file listing from it (the -t flag if I'm not mistaken), or restore to /dev/null with some verbose output redirection ...


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## sixtydoses (Dec 18, 2009)

Thanks DD. Thought of the former, yea, -t flag for listing. The latter idea is interesting. I'd try that.


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## sixtydoses (Dec 19, 2009)

I was about to start restoring my dump file to /dev/null when it came to mind.. how do I `cd` to /dev/null? Lol.

Can shed some light over here on how to restore to /dev/null, if it's possible?

But anyway I ran the `bzip2 -tv dumpfile` command and the result is ok so I guess it's good.


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## DutchDaemon (Dec 19, 2009)

Yeah, I was probably confusing target-like statements in dump and rsync with the lack thereof in restore. I guess the -N flag of restore can also serve as a test bed.


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## sixtydoses (Dec 19, 2009)

Oh wow, I missed the -N flag in the manual. Thanks.


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## sixtydoses (Dec 22, 2009)

Just to mark this as solved, the -N flag works great.


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## vivek (Dec 22, 2009)

Run restore in intractive mode and you use ls command to list files. If there is any error it will tell you on fly.

```
restore -i -f  /nas/usr.dump
```
OR

```
restore -iN -f  /nas/usr.dump
```


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