In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> you wrote:
>
> In many cases (i.e. when, during the mv operation, to time stamp of the
> testfile inode was modified) /dir1/testfile will not be stored because
> it's not recognized as new - it's time stamps are older than the last
> full backup.
AAAARGHHH!!!! It was exactly reasons like this one that made me
switch from my home-grown tar scripts to a professional backup
solution.
I *regularly* download files from the net, keeping their original
time stamps. These files are in MOST cases much older than my latest
(full) backup. Does that mean they will not get saved?
But that's a *MAJOR* bug in Bacula.
Sorry, so far I'm just a (happy, until 10 minutes ago) user of bacula
and I did not care about the implementation. My expectation was that
each backup run will compare file meta data against the database.
Then IMHO the following should happen:
* Each file we find in the file system is looked up in the DB.
(a) The file is not found in the database (no matter what it's time
stamps are!); in this case the file is new and must be backed
up; add it to the database; set a flag "file present" in the
database.
(b) The file is found in the database and has more recent time
stamps than the previous backup; in this case the file is new
and must be backed up; update entry in the database; set a flag
"file present" in the database.
(c) The file is found in the database and has older time stamps
than the previous backup; in this case the file is old and
needs no backup; set a flag "file present" in the database.
* After the whole file system has been processed, all files in the
database where the flag "file present" is *not* set should be
marked as "removed", because these relate to files that have been
deleted since the previous backup. After doing this, reset the
"file present" flag for all files. [When restoring such archives,
such files must be omitted resp. re,moved from the file system if
they exist.]
> Two common work-arounds: Do Full backups fom time to time, or, in case
> of really very important data you have to move, use touch.
This is not acceptable when you have to keep timestamps unchanged
which is oten needed for history etc.
> The possible future solution: Bacula could find files not only based on
> time stamps, but also by comparing with the list of previously saved
> files. This would, obviously, require massive code changes in the DIR
> and the FD.
I have to admit that I assumed bacula would already do this. [This
would also allow to detect deleted files and remove these when
restoring a backup, which IMHO is a basic feature, too.]
> Concerning your worries - with a proper setup (i.e. don't exclude file
> system trees with important data, and don't move important data around
> too much) this won't be a serious problem. In my opinion, of course.
My understanding is that this *is* a serious issue in all cases where
"new file" is defined as "not present yet at the time of the last
backup", which not necessarily means "newer timestamps".
Basing increment backup strategy on timestamps alone is bad enough in
stupid archival tools, but doing it when you already have a database
in place with all relevant data is IMHO a very, very serious error.
For me it's close to being a killing point :-(
Best regards,
Wolfgang Denk
--
Software Engineering: Embedded and Realtime Systems, Embedded Linux
Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Why don't you have a Linux partition installed so you can be working
in a programmer-friendly environment instead of a keep-gates'-bank-
account-happy one? :-) -- Tom Christiansen
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