rsk@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Rich Kulawiec) (11/16/88)
I just wanted to take the opportunity to plug the entombing system
developed locally, and now in general use here. For further info,
it's probably best to contact Matthew Bradburn at mjb@j.cc.purdue.edu,
since he's the author. Enclosed below is the abstract from the paper
describing the system.
"rm * .o" vs. the Novice User
Matthew J. Bradburn
Purdue University Computing Center
West Lafayette, IN 47907
ABSTRACT
This paper addresses the need for a mechanism to
recover accidentally deleted files. We consider
various procedures for saving ("entombing") the
these files and the relative merits of each.
Many of our users occasionally have reason to
require the restoration of some file, or group of
files, which has been accidentally deleted.
Currently, each user must create his own file
backup procedure which may not be efficient,
effective, or secure, and which may cause some
inconvenience by consuming a large portion of the
user's allotted disk space, or they must burden
the Computing Center staff with requests to
retrieve files from backup tape, a procedure which
may involve the loss of many hours' work and which
may not result in the recovery of the file.
While we recognize that the most comprehensive
method of solving this problem is to do so at the
kernel level, we feel that practical considera-
tions (including portability) make other solutions
more attractive. Our system of file entombing can
be added to any program without source code
changes by recompiling it with our entombing
library. This causes our subroutines to be sub-
stituted for system calls which commonly destroy
files.