GNU-tar vs dump(1)

[Antti Louko]

In article <1989Jan17.044721.5636 at utzoo.uucp> henry at utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <8768 at alice.UUCP> debra at alice.UUCP () writes:
>>... if one renames a directory none of the
>>attributes of the files in this directory change. So the files are not
>>backed up and unless one knows the previous name of the directory one
>>cannot find the files in the backup again...
>
>This is why sensible backup programs know you must back up the contents
>of directories, not just files.  This isn't a miracle cure, but it helps.

And in my opinion, it doesn't help enough. Consider following:

mkdir /tmp/d; cd /tmp/d
mkdir d1 d2
echo This f1 is under d1 > d1/f1
echo This f1 is under d2 > d2/f1

Do level 0 gnu-tar dump of /tmp/d

mv d1 new-d2
mv d2 d1
mv new-d2 d2

Do level 1 gnu-tar dump of /tmp/d

Because level 1 dump doesn't contain any info that d1 and d2 were
swapped, and no times of f1:s were changed, restoring level 0 and
then level 1 gives you the situation after level 0 dump.

gnu-tar dump should contain the same inode-number info which is in
conventional dump(8) archives.
---
alo at santra.UUCP (mcvax!santra!alo)       Antti Louko
alo at santra.hut.fi                        Helsinki University of Technology
alo at fingate.bitnet                       Computing Centre