[251] in linux-announce channel archive
ANNOUNCE: Linux Backup Utility (lbu) v 1.10
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Lars Wirzenius)
Sat Mar 4 07:37:05 1995
Date: Sat, 4 Mar 1995 13:17:19 +0200
From: Lars Wirzenius <wirzeniu@cc.helsinki.fi>
To: linux-activists@niksula.hut.fi, linux-announce@vger.rutgers.edu
X-Mn-Key: announce
From: jwb@decuk.uvo.dec.com (Jonathan Warburton-Brown)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.announce
Subject: ANNOUNCE: Linux Backup Utility (lbu) v 1.10
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Reply-To: jwb@decuk.uvo.dec.com (Jonathan Warburton-Brown)
Keywords: lbu LBU Backup
Approved: linux-announce@tc.cornell.edu (Lars Wirzenius)
Followup-to: comp.os.linux.setup
This is to announce that there is a new version of L.B.U, the Linux
Backup Utility, available on :
sunsite.unc.edu
in
/pub/Linux/system/Backup
the files are
Lnx-Bkp-Util-v1.10.Readme
Lnx-Bkp-Util-v1.10.lsm
Lnx-Bkp-Util-v1.10.tgz
For those unfamiliar with L.B.U, it provides a fully menu driven
facility for performing/scheduling backups and restore operations.
Here is part of the Readme indicating what is new in this release.
Version 1.10 is the second incarnation of L.B.U. When I first wrote
L.B.U v1.00 it was done largely as an exercise to teach me
shell-script programming but I received very favourable feedback from
people who have made use of it. L.B.U is even being used on at
least one commercial site !!! This feedback together with some
suggestions for improvements prompted me to make time to code version.
Time is in short supply for me and this release does cover every
suggestion I have received but it does add more flexibility and
usability to the utility.
One of the enhancements requested by several people is the ability to
choose the 'backup engine' so that it could be either tar (which it
is now), cpio or afio. This would have taken more time than is
currently available to me, but I am thinking about it for a future
release. Sorry it didn't make it this time.
A big thank you though to everyone who mailed me with ideas (and
praise as well :-) )... THANK YOU !
THIS RELEASE
o There have been numerous tidy-ups in the code but I'll not bore
you with the sordid details. The code is probably still a bit
ropy anyway since I'm still very much in the learning phase of
shell programming.
o There are various flags that may be set at the top of the lbu
script.
o I have removed the restriction that only root could make backups.
L.B.U should now be pretty much mutli-user. One word of caution
though no device/file locking is implemented which means two
people could try to back up to the same file/device at the same
time. This is mitigated somewhat by the fact that I have retained
the code which disallows more than one L.B.U session to be running
at once.
Also, the Scheduling function is restricted to root. Whilst most
of the code is in place for multi-user scheduling it does not work
fully yet. Anyway, it seemed to me that users creating many
schedules might not be a desirable thing !
If this multi-user functionality presents a problem, I suggest for
the moment, as system manager, that you limit L.B.U usage to root
with permission masks and/or set the lbu_root_only flag to yes by
editing the lbu script.
o An oversight in version 1.00 was that the first letters of menu
items were not unique. This has now been corrected and allows fast
menu hopping. For example, on the main menu, to get to any item
visible on the the screen there are three methods.
o Use the arrow keys
o Use the plus (+) and minus (-) keys
o Type the first letter of the menu item
o Device selection has been made a little more bullet-proof.
Entering an asterisk (*) will now just throw you into the
help-screen. Any spaces included (in error naturally) in the
device name will be converted to a an underscore.
o File/Directory selection has been made much more flexible and now
caters for wild-carding. Note that if an item is entered without
wild carding its validity is checked (ie does it exist). If
wild-carding is used then checking for that item is not
performed.
o Under the Options sub-menu there is one additional item entitled
Enable/Disable file exclusion. this switch activates/deactivates
an exclusions file which L.B.U uses when performing its
operations. Please see the section on the Exclusion File for
more information.
o The date validation in the Scheduling sub-menu has been tightened
up and now includes leap year checking.
o There is a Compare facility which allows reporting of differences
between a previously performed backup and the current
file-system.
o There is a Write function which saves the current configuration to
disk. Details saved are :
o Device selection
o File/Dir selection
o All options from the Options sub-menu
If there is no save file ($HOME/.lburc) then, when invoked, L.B.U
will proceed straight to the main menu. If however L.B.U finds a
save file a loading screen is presented and when loading is
complete (a few seconds) L.B.U proceeds to the main menu with the
previously saved selections already in force.
o The ability to create/modify an exclusions file. This file may
contain filenames (wild-carding allowed) which should be ignored
by the backup. See the section on Exclusions for more
information.
o No credit for me here, but all credit to Savio Lam. I have
included in the L.B.U v1.10 distribution version 0.5 of his
smart dialog utility which allows L.B.U to look so pretty.
Thanks Savio.
A postscript manual for L.B.U will be installed into /usr/lib/LBU/doc
Enjoy, and thanks to all Linuxers everywhere for their contribution
to the success of Linux.
Jonathan Warburton-Brown
------------------------
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