On Thu, Feb 14, 2002 at 10:46:39AM -0800, Jay Lessert wrote: > On Thu, Feb 14, 2002 at 09:56:45AM -0800, Dan Wilder wrote: > > > 1: atime gets touched. Most of the time you don't care, but when you > > > really need it (usually forensics for me), atime is nice to have. > > > > Assuming atime isn't actually _used_ by amanda (I can't imagine it > > would be), you could hack the amanda source to add > > > > --atime-preserve > > But then ctime moves. TANSTAAFL. :-)
Gaar. I guess I'm content to let atime bounce around. But, my particular constraints emphasize quick recovery hands down over forensic issues. Merely an accident of circumstance. > > If this is a _big_ problem, the source for tar could be modified. > > Usually not a big problem, and I've got around it in the past by spanking > the silly users that caused it... > > You would want to think *real* hard before just yanking the filename > and path length limits, because then a "normal" tar mightn't be able > to read it any more, and disaster recovery could become interesting. That generalizes. You don't ever want to be in a place where recovery depends on anything that could potentially be wiped out entirely by a single disaster. You can bet that if I was depending on a modified tar, you'd find a copy of it on my rescue floppy. Fortunately path and filename length constraints have never bothered me. The users here tend to want to be able to _type_ their file names, so I seldom see a file whose name exceeds about fifteen characters, or a directory more than about five levels down. > Really, the two points above aren't huge, but just point out the > advantage of working from within the file system (ufsdump) instead of > through the file system if you can. > > tar has many advantages of it's own, of course, not least that it > actually works well, today, on reiserfs/jfs/xfs/ext3 Linux file systems > for which no dump even exists (AFAIK), on ext2 file systems where dump > apparently does not work well currently, and that it is (mostly) > portable across different OS platforms. *That* is the advantage of > working through the file system. It's funny. Dump worked sort of off-and-on for me, when I used to use it. I got tired of repeatedly upgrading to The Version That Works. Switched to tar and have been able to dismiss the whole question, moving on to other challenges. Others report difficulties with tar, and complete success using dump. I can only conclude that somebody or something must have had it in for my use of dump, and the little dark cloud hovering over me does not hover over others. Perhaps I've a djinn or an ifrit in the data bus. My oft-repeated advice to others: use what pleases you, and what seems to suit your local constraints. But, keep an eye on the logs, and verify your backups! -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- Dan Wilder <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Technical Manager & Editor SSC, Inc. P.O. Box 55549 Phone: 206-782-8808 Seattle, WA 98155-0549 URL http://embedded.linuxjournal.com/ -----------------------------------------------------------------
