Xref: utzoo comp.unix.questions:10001 comp.unix.microport:1906
Path: utzoo!yunexus!geac!syntron!jtsv16!uunet!eplrx7!mcneill
From: mcneill@eplrx7.UUCP (mcneill)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.microport
Subject: Re: dump/restore
Summary: Many versions of Cpio are broken
Keywords: cpio is not a real backup program
Message-ID: <26@eplrx7.UUCP>
Date: 28 Oct 88 14:10:54 GMT
Article-I.D.: eplrx7.26
References: <178@celerity.UUCP> <12433@steinmetz.ge.com>
Lines: 32

In article <12433@steinmetz.ge.com>, davidsen@steinmetz.ge.com (William E. Davidsen Jr) writes:
> In article <178@celerity.UUCP> billd@celerity.UUCP (Bill Davidson) writes:
> | I am trying to write tapes from Microport System V/AT (80286 yech!) and
> | I would like to use a format which can be read by BSD 4.3's dump/restore
> | programs (so that I can read my backups from a real computer).  I have
> | the source for dump/restore on Berkeley but it's very much bound to the
> | Berkeley file system and it appears that it would be rediculously difficult
> | to port.
> 
>   Since you're summary was "cpio is not a real backup program" I have to
> ask "why not?" I go between SysIII, SysV, micropost, xenix, Ultrix and
> SunOS using cpio, and it seems real enough for general use. If there's a
> problem you have, warn us about it.
> 

Many versions of cpio (from original AT&T code) have a bug which makes multiple volume
cpio's unreliable.  Many times I have tried to restore multi-volume cpio archives 
without success.  The error occurs when you switch tapes.  Cpio sometimes does not
correctly write the info needed to switch to the next archive tape.








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