chris@mcc.pyrsyd.oz (Chris Robertson) (06/12/90)
In article <1990Jun6.214558.29674@iclswe.uucp> lars@iclswe.uucp (Lars Tunkrans) writes: >cander@unisoft.UUCP (Charles Anderson) writes: > >>From article <30178@cup.portal.com>, by tms@cup.portal.com: >>> Will the Unix Dump/Restore utilities be available on Unix 5.4? Will >>> there be a new, perhaps better utility for backup. What about >>> tar and cpio. Will both still be supported? > >SVR4.0 Does in addition to tar & cpio & dd also include "backup" carried >forward from the Xenix Environment. > >Extract from the man page: [deleted man page extract] That looks extremely like the SysV/386 R3.2 utility "backup" on my Bell Tech Unix. If it is, it's just a wrapper for cpio, with an index file at the first file on the first volume (so that the cpio archive is actually the second file on the volume). It's a bit deceptive about what it does -- it will only give you adequate backups if you never add any non-standard files or directories to your / or /usr partitions. It runs from two files in /etc -- by memory, they are Backup and Ignore, but I'm posting from work and my machine is at home, so this may be wrong. "Backup" contains a list of directories to look at and files from other directories to add to the backup list; "Ignore" contains filenames to remove from the list. The script does a "find" on the directory list (with a -newer flag for a partial) to a file in /tmp, twiddles this list a bit to remove the "Ignore" files, does a "du -a" on the list, adds it up, works out the volumes, and fires up cpio. It is absolutely intolerant of media faults (bad 14th floppy of 15? you lose). I had put a local bin and a few other things in / (doing a bit of creative disk space management), and had to do a lot of mods to the Backup and Ignore list to get reasonable coverage of / and /usr. Their Ignore handling is pretty simplistic, too. I'd caution anyone who plans using it to have a good look at the script and the Backup and Ignore files to make sure they really are covered if they use it. If anyone is interested, I will post the scripts I am doing for backups and checksumming files, designed to ensure any non-installation- floppy stuff you put on your system, and any of the standard files you have changed, are backed up, and any changed checksums reported (not the same script, BTW), once I finish and have tested them. -- "Down in the dumps? I TOLD you you'd | Chris Robertson need two sets..." | chris@mcc.pyrsyd.oz