Re: /dev/tcp

c186282 <[email protected]> wrote:
>   Other odd Linux tricks - how many know you can
>   read/write to a disk drive that has no file
>   system ?

That is not a Linux trick, that's a Unix feature given that devices are 
mapped to files.

Just write your data to /dev/sda (whole disk, including boot sector) or 
/dev/sda5 (5th partition on disk).

That is where the 'dd' command is useful.  You can "clone" a disk on 
Unix (if you are root, or if the two disk device files have write 
permission for your current user) by just doing:

dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=4096 

Assuming the disks use 4096 byte sectors.  

No need for extra "disk cloning" machines to actually duplicate a disk.

You can also backup the same way (although it is a rather wasteful way, 
as you also backup all the empty "free space" too):

dd if=/dev/sda of=/tmp/disk-backup bs=4096

None of this is new to anyone who's used, and understood from an admin 
perspective, a Unix system for any short length of time.