Re: dump problems

Danny Braniss wrote:
> [dump] has been around since the beginin of time,
> or at least since Unix V6 :-), and it has been hacked ever since. but now that
> most of you never heard of 9track tapes, etc, I was wondering if there is a 
> point in hacking at
> it again. 
> pros: dump/restore has never failed me till now.
> cons: there are other programs tar/cpio/gtar/etc, but they each have their 
> nits.

I think there is real value in a backup/restore option
that is specifically designed for UFS volumes.  In
particular, it's the only way to be comfortably certain
that all UFS-specific attributes (ACLs, extended
attributes, etc) are correctly backed-up and restored.

Tar, cpio, and other similar programs are widely used
for purposes other than whole-system backup.
As such, they have to balance requirements that simply
aren't of interest to dump/restore.

Tim Kientzle