Command Section

RESTORE(8)              FreeBSD System Manager's Manual             RESTORE(8)

NAME
     restore, rrestore - restore files or file systems from backups made with
     dump

SYNOPSIS
     restore -i [-dDhmNuvy] [-b blocksize] [-f file | -P pipecommand]
             [-s fileno]
     restore -R [-dDNuvy] [-b blocksize] [-f file | -P pipecommand]
             [-s fileno]
     restore -r [-dDNuvy] [-b blocksize] [-f file | -P pipecommand]
             [-s fileno]
     restore -t [-dDhNuvy] [-b blocksize] [-f file | -P pipecommand]
             [-s fileno] [file ...]
     restore -x [-dDhmNuvy] [-b blocksize] [-f file | -P pipecommand]
             [-s fileno] [file ...]

DESCRIPTION
     The restore utility performs the inverse function of dump(8).  A full
     backup of a file system may be restored and subsequent incremental
     backups layered on top of it.  Single files and directory subtrees may be
     restored from full or partial backups.  The restore utility works across
     a network; to do this see the -f and -P flags described below.  Other
     arguments to the command are file or directory names specifying the files
     that are to be restored.  Unless the -h flag is specified (see below),
     the appearance of a directory name refers to the files and (recursively)
     subdirectories of that directory.

     restore may also be invoked as rrestore.  The 4.3BSD option syntax is
     implemented for backward compatibility, but is not documented here.

     Exactly one of the following flags is required:

     -i      This mode allows interactive restoration of files from a dump.
             After reading in the directory information from the dump, restore
             provides a shell like interface that allows the user to move
             around the directory tree selecting files to be extracted.  The
             available commands are given below; for those commands that
             require an argument, the default is the current directory.

             add [arg]   The current directory or specified argument is added
                         to the list of files to be extracted.  If a directory
                         is specified, then it and all its descendents are
                         added to the extraction list (unless the -h flag is
                         specified on the command line).  Files that are on
                         the extraction list are prepended with a ``*'' when
                         they are listed by ls.

             cd arg      Change the current working directory to the specified
                         argument.

             delete [arg]
                         The current directory or specified argument is
                         deleted from the list of files to be extracted.  If a
                         directory is specified, then it and all its
                         descendents are deleted from the extraction list
                         (unless the -h flag is specified on the command
                         line).  The most expedient way to extract most of the
                         files from a directory is to add the directory to the
                         extraction list and then delete those files that are
                         not needed.

             extract     All the files that are on the extraction list are
                         extracted from the dump.  The restore utility will
                         ask which volume the user wishes to mount.  The
                         fastest way to extract a few files is to start with
                         the last volume, and work towards the first volume.

             help        List a summary of the available commands.

             ls [arg]    List the current or specified directory.  Entries
                         that are directories are appended with a ``/''.
                         Entries that have been marked for extraction are
                         prepended with a ``*''.  If the verbose flag is set
                         the inode number of each entry is also listed.

             pwd         Print the full pathname of the current working
                         directory.

             quit        Exit immediately, even if the extraction list is not
                         empty.

             setmodes    All the directories that have been added to the
                         extraction list have their owner, modes, and times
                         set; nothing is extracted from the dump.  This is
                         useful for cleaning up after a restore has been
                         prematurely aborted.

             verbose     The sense of the -v flag is toggled.  When set, the
                         verbose flag causes the ls command to list the inode
                         numbers of all entries.  It also causes restore to
                         print out information about each file as it is
                         extracted.

             what        Display dump header information, which includes:
                         date, level, label, and the file system and host dump
                         was made from.

     -R      Request a particular tape of a multi volume set on which to
             restart a full restore (see the -r flag below).  This is useful
             if the restore has been interrupted.

     -r      Restore (rebuild a file system).  The target file system should
             be made pristine with newfs(8), mounted and the user cd(1)'d into
             the pristine file system before starting the restoration of the
             initial level 0 backup.  If the level 0 restores successfully,
             the -r flag may be used to restore any necessary incremental
             backups on top of the level 0.  The -r flag precludes an
             interactive file extraction and can be detrimental to one's
             health if not used carefully (not to mention the disk).  An
             example:

                   newfs /dev/da0s1a
                   mount /dev/da0s1a /mnt
                   cd /mnt

                   restore rf /dev/sa0

             Note that restore leaves a file restoresymtable in the root
             directory to pass information between incremental restore passes.
             This file should be removed when the last incremental has been
             restored.

             The restore utility , in conjunction with newfs(8) and dump(8),
             may be used to modify file system parameters such as size or
             block size.

     -t      The names of the specified files are listed if they occur on the
             backup.  If no file argument is given, then the root directory is
             listed, which results in the entire content of the backup being
             listed, unless the -h flag has been specified.  Note that the -t
             flag replaces the function of the old dumpdir(8) program.

     -x      The named files are read from the given media.  If a named file
             matches a directory whose contents are on the backup and the -h
             flag is not specified, the directory is recursively extracted.
             The owner, modification time, and mode are restored (if
             possible).  If no file argument is given, then the root directory
             is extracted, which results in the entire content of the backup
             being extracted, unless the -h flag has been specified.

     The following additional options may be specified:

     -b blocksize
             The number of kilobytes per dump record.  If the -b option is not
             specified, restore tries to determine the media block size
             dynamically.

     -d      Sends verbose debugging output to the standard error.

     -D      This puts restore into degraded mode, causing restore to operate
             less efficiently but to try harder to read corrupted backups.

     -f file
             Read the backup from file; file may be a special device file like
             /dev/sa0 (a tape drive), /dev/da1c (a disk drive), an ordinary
             file, or `-' (the standard input).  If the name of the file is of
             the form "host:file", or "user@host:file", restore reads from the
             named file on the remote host using rmt(8).

     -P pipecommand
             Use popen(3) to execute the sh(1) script string defined by
             pipecommand as the input for every volume in the backup.  This
             child pipeline's stdout (/dev/fd/1) is redirected to the restore
             input stream, and the environment variable RESTORE_VOLUME is set
             to the current volume number being read.  The pipecommand script
             is started each time a volume is loaded, as if it were a tape
             drive.

     -h      Extract the actual directory, rather than the files that it
             references.  This prevents hierarchical restoration of complete
             subtrees from the dump.

     -m      Extract by inode numbers rather than by file name.  This is
             useful if only a few files are being extracted, and one wants to
             avoid regenerating the complete pathname to the file.

     -N      Do the extraction normally, but do not actually write any changes
             to disk.  This can be used to check the integrity of dump media
             or other test purposes.

     -s fileno
             Read from the specified fileno on a multi-file tape.  File
             numbering starts at 1.

     -u      When creating certain types of files, restore may generate a
             warning diagnostic if they already exist in the target directory.
             To prevent this, the -u (unlink) flag causes restore to remove
             old entries before attempting to create new ones.  This flag is
             recommended when using extended attributes to avoid improperly
             accumulating attributes on pre-existing files.

     -v      Normally restore does its work silently.  The -v (verbose) flag
             causes it to type the name of each file it treats preceded by its
             file type.

     -y      Do not ask the user whether to abort the restore in the event of
             an error.  Always try to skip over the bad block(s) and continue.

ENVIRONMENT
     TAPE        Device from which to read backup.

     TMPDIR      Name of directory where temporary files are to be created.

FILES
     /dev/sa0           the default tape drive
     /tmp/rstdir*       file containing directories on the tape.
     /tmp/rstmode*      owner, mode, and time stamps for directories.
     ./restoresymtable  information passed between incremental restores.

DIAGNOSTICS
     The restore utility complains if it gets a read error.  If -y has been
     specified, or the user responds `y', restore will attempt to continue the
     restore.

     If a backup was made using more than one tape volume, restore will notify
     the user when it is time to mount the next volume.  If the -x or -i flag
     has been specified, restore will also ask which volume the user wishes to
     mount.  The fastest way to extract a few files is to start with the last
     volume, and work towards the first volume.

     There are numerous consistency checks that can be listed by restore.
     Most checks are self-explanatory or can ``never happen''.  Common errors
     are given below.

     <filename>: not found on tape
             The specified file name was listed in the tape directory, but was
             not found on the tape.  This is caused by tape read errors while
             looking for the file, and from using a dump tape created on an
             active file system.

     expected next file <inumber>, got <inumber>
             A file that was not listed in the directory showed up.  This can
             occur when using a dump created on an active file system.

     Incremental dump too low
             When doing incremental restore, a dump that was written before
             the previous incremental dump, or that has too low an incremental
             level has been loaded.

     Incremental dump too high
             When doing incremental restore, a dump that does not begin its
             coverage where the previous incremental dump left off, or that
             has too high an incremental level has been loaded.

     Tape read error while restoring <filename>
     Tape read error while skipping over inode <inumber>
     Tape read error while trying to resynchronize
             A tape (or other media) read error has occurred.  If a file name
             is specified, then its contents are probably partially wrong.  If
             an inode is being skipped or the tape is trying to resynchronize,
             then no extracted files have been corrupted, though files may not
             be found on the tape.

     resync restore, skipped <num> blocks
             After a dump read error, restore may have to resynchronize
             itself.  This message lists the number of blocks that were
             skipped over.

SEE ALSO
     dump(8), mount(8), newfs(8), rmt(8)

HISTORY
     The restore utility appeared in 4.2BSD.

BUGS
     The restore utility can get confused when doing incremental restores from
     dumps that were made on active file systems without the -L option (see
     dump(8)).

     A level zero dump must be done after a full restore.  Because restore
     runs in user code, it has no control over inode allocation; thus a full
     dump must be done to get a new set of directories reflecting the new
     inode numbering, even though the contents of the files is unchanged.

     To do a network restore, you have to run restore as root.  This is due to
     the previous security history of dump and restore.  (restore is written
     to be setuid root, but we are not certain all bugs are gone from the
     restore code - run setuid at your own risk.)

     The temporary files /tmp/rstdir* and /tmp/rstmode* are generated with a
     unique name based on the date of the dump and the process ID (see
     mktemp(3)), except for when -r or -R is used.  Because -R allows you to
     restart a -r operation that may have been interrupted, the temporary
     files should be the same across different processes.  In all other cases,
     the files are unique because it is possible to have two different dumps
     started at the same time, and separate operations should not conflict
     with each other.

FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE-p6        October 12, 2006        FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE-p6

Command Section

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