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

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

restore [-chimRrtvxy] [-b blocksize] [-f file] [-s fileno] [file ...]

The restore command 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. 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 works across networks, replacing the functionality of the old rrestore program (though restore may still be invoked as rrestore). See the -f option for more on reading backups from remote hosts.

Exactly one of the following flags is required:

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.
[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 descendants 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.
arg
Change the current working directory to the specified argument.
[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 descendants 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.
All files on the extraction list are extracted from the dump. restore 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.
List a summary of the available commands.
[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.
Print the full pathname of the current working directory.
Restore immediately exits, even if the extraction list is not empty.
All 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.
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.
List dump header information.
restore requests 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.
Restore (rebuild) a file system. The target file system should be made pristine with newfs(8), mounted, and the user changed working directory 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 (not to mention the disk) if not used carefully. An example of correct usage: 
# newfs /dev/rsd0g
# mount /dev/sd0g /mnt
# cd /mnt
# restore rf /dev/rst0

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.

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

The names of the specified files are listed if they occur on the backup. If no file argument is given, 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 program.
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, 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:

blocksize
The number of kilobytes per dump record. If the -b option is not specified, restore tries to determine the block size dynamically.
Normally, restore will try to determine dynamically whether the dump was made from an old (pre-4.4) or new format file system. The -c flag disables this check, and only allows reading a dump in the old format.
file
Read the backup from file; file may be a special device file like /dev/rst0 (a tape drive), /dev/rsd1c (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).
Extract the actual directory, rather than the files that it references. This prevents hierarchical restoration of complete subtrees from the dump.
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.
fileno
Read from the specified fileno on a multi-file tape. File numbering starts at 1.
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.
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.

If the following environment variable exists, it will be utilized by restore:

The directory given in TMPDIR will be used instead of /tmp to store temporary files. Refer to environ(7) for more information.
Default tape device to use instead of /dev/rst0.

/dev/rst0
the default tape drive
/dev/rst*
raw SCSI tape interface
/tmp/rstdir*
file containing directories on the tape
/tmp/rstmode*
owner, mode, and time stamps for directories
./restoresymtable
information passed between incremental restores

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.

Converting to new file system format
A dump tape created from the old file system has been loaded. It is automatically converted to the new file system format.

<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 an 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 an 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, its contents are probably partially wrong. If an inode is being skipped or the tape is trying to resynchronize, 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.

environ(7), dump(8), mount(8), newfs(8), rmt(8)

The restore command appeared in 4.2BSD.

The 4.3BSD option syntax is implemented for backward compatibility but is not documented here.

restore can get confused when doing incremental restores from dumps that were made on active file systems.

A level 0 dump must be done after a full restore. Because restore runs in user mode, 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 content of the files is unchanged.

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 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 shouldn't conflict with each other.

March 31, 2022 OpenBSD-7.3