Backing up linux system: How to create /dev?

[Griffith Feeney]

I want to secure my linux (Debian 2.2) installation with a backup for
recovery (of the system, not particular data) in case of problems. Prefer
free to commercial solution. This is a single user workstation.

There is (!) no backup HOWTO or Mini-HOWTO (the one on using MSDOS isn't
pertinent). The Debian System Adminstrator's Manual doesn't provide the
detail I need. Seaching 'backup' on www.linux.org turns up nothing, nor
have I found anything useful searching generally on the web.

I'm thinking to use the infozip zip and unzip programs. Most of the root
directories zip up fine, but a few of them raise questions.

1 /proc  Don't need to worry about this, I think, kernel will create, yes?

2 /dev   The Device Files section of Running Linux, 3rd ed; says that
'device files are generally created during system installation', but not
how this is done. It deals with creation of a single device file, but not
how to create the lot of them.

3 /usr   'zip -r usr usr' (in /) gives a zip warning 'name not matched' for
the file /usr/lib/X11/xinit/xserverrc, and for a handful of other files. I
don't find any explanation in the zip man pages on my system, but a web
search turned up the explanation
(http://www.mcs.vuw.ac.nz/cgi-bin/man2html?zip(1)) that zip gives this
message when it zips links to non-existent files. Presumably if the system
is running okay (it is), this won't be a problem.

So the main questions seems to be: how to create /dev?