The gunion(8) utility is used to track changes to a read-only disk on
a writable disk. Logically, a writable disk is placed over a read-only
disk. Write requests are intercepted and stored on the writable
disk. Read requests are first checked to see if they have been
written on the top (writable disk) and if found are returned. If
they have not been written on the top disk, then they are read from
the lower disk.
The gunion(8) utility can be especially useful if you have a large
disk with a corrupted filesystem that you are unsure of how to
repair. You can use gunion(8) to place another disk over the corrupted
disk and then attempt to repair the filesystem. If the repair fails,
you can revert all the changes in the upper disk and be back to the
unchanged state of the lower disk thus allowing you to try another
approach to repairing it. If the repair is successful you can commit
all the writes recorded on the top disk to the lower disk.
Another use of the gunion(8) utility is to try out upgrades to your
system. Place the upper disk over the disk holding your filesystem
that is to be upgraded and then run the upgrade on it. If it works,
commit it; if it fails, revert the upgrade.
Further details can be found in the gunion(8) manual page.
Reviewed by: Chuck Silvers, kib (earlier version)
tested by: Peter Holm
Differential Revision: https://reviews.freebsd.org/D32697
c7996ddf80