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From: std-unix@ut-sally.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.std.unix
Subject: Re: tar vs. cpio
Message-ID: <8252@ut-sally.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 13-Jun-87 01:16:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: ut-sally.8252
Posted: Sat Jun 13 01:16:33 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 14-Jun-87 18:41:30 EDT
References: <8188@ut-sally.UUCP>
Sender: std-unix@ut-sally.UUCP
Reply-To: katzung@laidbak.UUCP (Brian Katzung)
Organization: Lachman Associates, Inc, Chicago
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Approved: jsq@sally.utexas.edu (Moderator, John Quarterman)

From: katzung@laidbak.UUCP (Brian Katzung)

When I was working at the University of California San Francisco,
I made some simple modifications to tar for use as a backup facility.
As far as I know, this is still the method being used for backup on
that system.

The changes I made were:

	o Incremental mode (accepts file names from standard input
		and directories don't recurse).
	o Stay on the device associated with a disk or directory
		(don't cross mount points).
	o Multi-volume tapes on drives that support EOT reporting
		(I added a simple ioctl to our tape driver that
		reported EOT status).
	o A flag for continuing after directory checksum errors (to
		allow starting with any volume in a multi-volume
		set; it quickly syncs up on the first valid header).
	o Copies of all errors could be sent to a log file for
		semi-unattended operation.

-- Brian Katzung  ihnp4!laidbak!katzung


Volume-Number: Volume 11, Number 57