Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!batcomputer!cornell!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!bcsaic!paula@atc.boeing.com
From: paula@atc.boeing.com (Paul Allen)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Backup and Restore
Message-ID: <45064@bcsaic.UUCP>
Date: 12 Apr 91 20:10:05 GMT
References: <4208@stl.stc.co.uk>
Sender: nntp@bcsaic.UUCP
Organization: Boeing Computer Services Advanced Technology Center
Lines: 44

In article <4208@stl.stc.co.uk> agm@daphne.stl.stc.co.uk (Andrew G. Minter) writes:
>[... about adventures with dump/restore ..]

>The things I would really like to be able to do are (in order of preference):
>
>1.  Dump and restore whole file systems very reliably.
>2.  Restore individual files or sets of files with out going through a vast
>    pile of floppies.
>3.  Incremental dumps.
>4.  Dumps of part of a file system (subtree).
>
>I'd also like compression, I think this could actually make the dump
>faster as well as save disk space.

[...]

>I'm getting pretty desperate folks and I can't believe that nobody else
>has the same problem.  What do people do?

I ported GNU tar.  It does multivolume full or incremental backups.  It
understands an extended "GNU" tar format for incremental backups that
contains information about deleted files in addition to new and changed
files.  It can compress the archive, although I haven't bothered to get
this working with multi-volume archives.  It can skip over damaged
parts of an archive.  It's got a list of options as long as your arm.
:-)

I think I had a version of GNU tar (or pdtar) working before I switched
over to 32-bit mode on my 386, but that's been more than a year ago and
my memory gets fuzzy.  :-)  John Gilmore's pdtar may be smaller (and so
easier to build on 16-bit Minix), but it doesn't have the nice GNU
incremental dump extensions.

I could probably generate diffs for my port of GNU tar, but if someone
else has done a port that they're particularly proud of, I would be happy
to let them post theirs instead.  Anybody interested in my diffs?
Anybody else already have diffs ready to post?

Paul Allen

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul L. Allen                       | pallen@atc.boeing.com
Boeing Advanced Technology Center   | ...!uw-beaver!bcsaic!pallen