VOLDUMP(8)

📦
version 1.8.16.1 · 10 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

💾 voldump — the AFS command reference, but make it a group chat 💾

okay bestie, so this is voldump(8) — a section 8 AFS command, and she's kind of a big deal in a very specific emergency way. sit down, grab a strawberry 🍓, and let me tell you everything.

✨ NAME ✨

voldump — dump an AFS volume without using the Volume Server 🫶

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

voldump -part <partition> -volumeid <volume id>
    [-file <dump file>] [-time <dump from time>]
    [-pad-errors] [-verbose] [-help]

voldump -p <partition> -vo <volume id>
    [-f <dump file>] [-time <dump from time>]
    [-ve] [-h]

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so what does voldump actually do? she dumps an AFS volume in the exact same format that vos dump uses — but she does it without touching the Volume Server. periodt. 💅

here's the vibe check: you have to run her on the file server machine, and usually you've gotta be the superuser root, because otherwise you don't have permission to read the file server data. and her main character purpose? recovering data from a file server machine where the Volume Server just cannot be started for some reason. it's giving rescue mission. 🦋

where does the output go? standard output by default, or into a file if you pass -file. and then vos restore can be used to load that resulting dump into a new AFS volume. 💖

also important: voldump always does a full dump. no half measures, no crumbs. ✨

✨ CAUTIONS ✨

okay so real talk, this part matters:

  • normally? use vos dump instead. like, genuinely. voldump is a tool of last resort — she exists to try to extract data from the raw data structures stored on the file server machine, and she's not as regularly tested or used as the normal vos dump implementation. so, y'know. she's the backup dancer, not the headliner. 👑
⚠️ if the AFS volume being dumped changes while voldump is running, the results may be inconsistent. if the File Server and Volume Server are running, stop them with bos shutdown or a similar method before running this command. do not skip this step bestie, i am begging 😭

✨ OPTIONS ✨

  • -part <partition> — names the partition where the volume you wanna dump is chillin'. but heads up: voldump does not take the normal full range of ways of specifying a partition. instead, partition must be EITHER a single letter between "a" and "z" (which maps to /vicepa through /vicepz) OR the full path to the file server partition. and "aa" is not recognized — use /vicepaa instead. she's picky, we respect it. 🙈
  • -volumeid <volume id> — specifies the ID of the volume to dump. the volume must be specified by numeric ID, not by name. no nicknames, no pet names. 🔢
  • -file <dump file> — specifies the output file for the dump. if you don't give this option, the volume gets dumped to standard output. 🌸
  • -time <dump from time> — specifies whether the dump is full or incremental. omit this argument to create a full dump, or provide one of the valid values listed in vos_dump(1). ⏰
  • -pad-errors — when reading vnode data from disk, if voldump encounters an I/O error or an unexpected EOF, by default voldump will print an error and exit. but if -pad-errors is given, instead voldump will pad the unreadable region with NUL bytes and continue with the dump. 🩹

this option may be useful when trying to extract data from volumes where the underlying disk is failing, or the volume data is corrupted. data may be missing from files in the volume in such cases (replaced by NUL bytes), but at least some data may be extracted. it's giving "it's not perfect but it's something" 💀

  • -verbose — asks for a verbose trace of the dump process. this trace information will be sent to standard error. 👀
  • -help — prints the online help for this command. all other valid options are ignored. classic. 🙃

✨ EXAMPLES ✨

the following command dumps the volume 1936964939 on the /vicepb partition to the file /tmp/volume.dump:

% voldump -part /vicepb -volumeid 1936964939 -file /tmp/volume.dump

ate. 🔥

✨ PRIVILEGE REQUIRED ✨

the issuer must have read access to the file server data stored in the specified partition. usually, this means the issuer must be the local superuser root on the file server machine. so yeah — sudo up or go home. 💅

✨ SEE ALSO ✨

bos_shutdown(8), restorevol(1), volserver(8), vos_dump(1), vos_restore(1) — go read these too, bestie, they're the supporting cast 🫶

Copyright 2005 Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu> 🌈

this documentation is covered by the IBM Public License Version 1.0. this man page was written by Russ Allbery for OpenAFS.

okay that's the whole thing! you're officially a voldump expert, no cap 🎀 this was OpenAFS, dated 2026-07-27, dropping the VOLDUMP(8) page — mwah, love u, bye! 💖✨🦋

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