# Where dump saved by default?



## 17garcol17 (Sep 22, 2016)

Hello. I could not find an answer in the search. I damaged the root partition. In the "fstab" it is written that the dump makes copies. Where to find them? Thank you in advance.


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## SirDice (Sep 22, 2016)

17garcol17 said:


> In the "fstab" it is written that the dump makes copies.


I'm sorry, what exactly do you mean?


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## kpa (Sep 22, 2016)

It doesn't make backups/copies automatically, it has to be run manually (or in cron(8) perhaps to automate the process) to create the backups that are regular files. See here:

https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/backup-basics.html


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## SirDice (Sep 22, 2016)

Ah, right, the fstab(5) man page does indeed refer to dump(8). Now I understand the question.


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## 17garcol17 (Sep 23, 2016)

kpa said:


> It doesn't make backups/copies automatically, it has to be run manually (or in cron(8) perhaps to automate the process) to create the backups that are regular files. See here:
> 
> https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/backup-basics.html


Why has the system dump setting in fstab if it is not working and need to configure manually?


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## kpa (Sep 23, 2016)

17garcol17 said:


> Why has the system dump setting in fstab if it is not working and need to configure manually?



From the fstab(5) manual page:

```
The fifth field, (fs_freq), is used for these file systems by the dump(8)
    command to determine which file systems need to be dumped.  If the fifth
     field is not present, a value of zero is returned and dump will assume
     that the file system does not need to be dumped.  If the fifth field is
     greater than 0, then it specifies the number of days between dumps for
     this file system.
```

This information is used by `dump -W` (or `dump -w)`) with /etc/dumpdates to determine if a filesystem needs to be dumped, from dump(8):


```
-W      Tell the operator what file systems need to be dumped.  This
            information is gleaned from the files dumpdates and /etc/fstab.
             The -W option causes dump to print out, for each file system in
             the dumpdates file the most recent dump date and level, and
             highlights those file systems that should be dumped.  If the -W
             option is set, all other options are ignored, and dump exits
             immediately.

     -w      Is like -W, but prints only those file systems which need to be
             dumped.
```

So in summary, dump(8) is never run automatically and the fstab(5) entries are only used if dump(8) is run with certain options.


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