Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!bellcore!uunet!mcsun!ukc!slxsys!jonb
From: jonb@specialix.co.uk (Jon Brawn)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.internals
Subject: Re: How do you find the symbolic links to files.
Message-ID: <1990Dec7.124153.12296@specialix.co.uk>
Date: 7 Dec 90 12:41:53 GMT
References: <25146@adm.brl.mil> <1990Dec5.052124.28435@erg.sri.com> <109886@convex.convex.com> <1990Dec6.001401.8966@erg.sri.com>
Organization: Specialix International, London
Lines: 24

zwicky@erg.sri.com (Elizabeth Zwicky) writes:

>I have also heard speculations about the existence of programs that do
>cuddle up to the raw disk and know where the holes in their files are,
>and get upset if you move them around. Certainly this is theoretically
>possible, although behaviour to be forcefully deprecated. Does anybody
>know of programs that actually do this?

I worked on one such beast while I was with Systime: a software suite
called 'Cobra'. The idea here was to be *so* close to the file system
that you only backed up disk blocks that were useful (i.e. not free
blocks) and had been changed. It used all sorts of exciting buffering
and shared memory tricks to whizz data onto streamer tapes and the such,
and had (most of) a wonderful system for telling you which tapes you
needed to restore files.

It never saw the light of day. I would like to finish it one day....

>	Elizabeth Zwicky
-- 
 "These opinions where made up on the spur of the moment, to a formula kept
 secret from prying eyes for hundreds of years, and bear no relationship to
       my actual beliefs, let alone those of Specialix International"
Jon Brawn, jonb@specialix.co.uk "I didn't do it. I wan't there."