Re: [Bug-tar] [GNU tar 1.15.1] testsuite: 20 failed

[Joerg Schilling]

Joerg Schilling <address@hidden> wrote:

> > Test #20 fails on filesystems that not change ctime of
> > a file when renaming, particularly on ResierFS filesystem.
....

> A bug in ResierFS filesystem needs to be fixed inside the
> ResierFS filesystem.
>
> /*--------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
> Upon successful completion, rename() shall mark for update the st_ctime and 
> st_mtime fields of the parent directory of each file.
> /*--------------------------------------------------------------------------*/

I am not sure if I have been too quick, but if the problem is a result
of the fact that ReiserFs may not update the ctime of the renamed file,
then this is no problem with star's incremental method.

The method used by star is basically the same as with ufsdump/ufsrestore.

Star's method has been designed and developed during the past three years.
It is based on a documented extensions on the POSIX.1-2001 extended tar format.
New programs (like GNU tar) that like to start implementing incremental
backup strategies should just implement the method used by star instead
of creating a new method.

Note that about an hour ago, I did publish star-1.5a55 which is the release 
candidate for star-1.5 final.

Star has been tested heavily during the past 3 months with 120 GB of dayly 
data (5-10 GB od dayly changed and 1000-10000 of files that get removed
per day). The test has been done using the option -dump-cumulative / 
-cumulative that allows to synchronize filesystems using the incremental
dump/restore procedure. After each incremental sync, a full star -c | star -diff
check has been run. So we may say that star did pass > 10 TB of real life
incremental backup _and_ restore.

 
Jörg

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