Re: Why or why not back up "/lost+found"
On Fri, Aug 11, 2023 at 12:03:26AM +0200, Nicolas George wrote:
> Default User (12023-08-10):
> > > > And, if /lost+found should be excluded, then shouldn't "lost+found"
> > > > in any other directories be excluded from backups as well? Why/why
> > > > not?
>
> > Unfortunately, I regret to say that I did not find that the answer to
> > the question(s) about lost+found in the original post were contained in
> > the explanation(s) of its function - at least in what I have read so
> > far.
>
> The lost+found directory at the root of the filesystem is special, it is
> created when the filesystem is created and set up to receive orphaned
> files. A lost+found directory elsewhere… is just a directory with a
> wacky name.
Expanding on this: the only time there are ever going to be files in
the lost+found directory is if your file system has suffered some
damage/corruption, and fsck has found some files that are not
referenced by any directory. Fsck puts those files in lost+found with
a procedurally generated name, since fsck doesn't have any idea what
the file's original names were.
If you ever see files in lost+found, then you know that this has
occurred. Furthermore, it is on *you* to try to figure out what each
file is, where it came from, and what it should be called. This will
be a 100% manual process.
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