On 24.02.01, 13:57:18, Thor Lancelot Simon wrote:

> On Sat, Feb 24, 2001 at 12:04:34PM +0100, Bernd Sieker wrote:
[...]
> > 
> > Why would you have to? Dump only reads from a file system; to quote from
> > init(8):
> 
> Your statement is false.  Dump reads from the raw device no matter how
> you run it.

Dear Thor Lancelot Simon,

if you had taken the time to bother with the context you would have
noticed, that the emphasis here was on _read_, vs. _write_, and not on
file system vs. device.

The point was that the original poster only would have had to shutdown
his system if he had wanted to use tools that _write_ to the device,
like fsck or newfs. (Unless he were running his system in permanently
insecure mode.)

And if you want to be that picky, dump does in fact read from a file
system in the sense that it does need a properly formatted file system
on the raw device that it reads from. It won't do anything except
complain if you give it a device with anything else on it.

You are, of course, right in that dump does not read regular files,
like i. e. tar does, but reads the raw device, but that was not the
point here.

Kind regards,

	Bernd

> 
> Thor
> 

-- 
Bernd Sieker

NetBSD - free yourself from all Stallmanist thought!
		-- Julian Assange