NAME
dar_manager - disk archive manager
SYNOPSIS
dar_manager [-v] [-j] -C [<path>/]<database>
dar_manager [-v] [-j] -B [<path>/]<database> -A [<path>/]<basename> [
[<path>/]<archive_basename>]
dar_manager [-v] [-j] -B [<path>/]<database> -l
dar_manager [-v] [-j] -B [<path>/]<database> -D <number>[-<number>]
dar_manager [-v] [-j] -B [<path>/]<database> -b <number>
<new_archive_basename>
dar_manager [-v] [-j] -B [<path>/]<database> -p <number> <path>
dar_manager [-v] [-j] -B [<path>/]<database> -o [list of options to
pass to dar]
dar_manager [-v] [-j] -B [<path>/]<database> -d [<path to dar command>]
dar_manager [-v] [-j] -B [<path>/]<database> [-w <date>] [-e <extra
options to dar>] -r [list of files to restore]
dar_manager [-v] [-j] -B [<path>/]<database> -u <number>
dar_manager [-v] [-j] -B [<path>/]<database> -f file
dar_manager [-v] [-j] -B [<path>/]<database> -s
dar_manager [-v] [-j] -B [<path>/]<database> -m <number> <number>
dar_manager [-v] [-j] -B [<path>/]<database> -i
dar_manager -h
dar_manager -V
DESCRIPTION
dar_manager is part of the Disk Archive suite. Its purpose is to
simplify the restoration of a set of few files present in many backup,
full or differential. This is achieved by gathering the catalogue of
each archive (this has to be done once). At any time you just have to
give the relative path to the files you want to restore, dar_manager
will call dar with the proper options and restore the last version of
each file (or the last version before given date). Note that
dar_manager is to be used when you have remove some files by accident
some time ago and wish to recover them. It thus not adapted to restore
the state a directory tree had at a given time, in particular when some
files have to be removed. For that you must use dar directly with the
corresponding archive to the date for which you wish to restore the
state.
you can restore any file by hand without dar_manager , but if you make
a lot of differential backup, you may spend many time to find the
archive that contains the last version of your file, as dar will not
save it if it has not changed since previous backup. dar_manager
simplify the process by looking in its internal database, built from
archive "catalogues".
OPTIONS
-C, --create [<path>/]<database>
creates an empty database that will collect
informations about several archives. The <database>
is a filename that is required for -B option. To
destroy a <database> just remove the file.
-B, --base [<path>/]<database>
specify the database to read or modify. The
<database> file must exist, and have a database
structure (see -C option).
-i, --interactive use a keyboard interactive text menu to do
operations on the given database. So you may avoid
reading the other options described in this manual
page, if you wish, and just use the interactive
option. You will however always have to create an
empty database (-C option) and restore files
manually (-r option).
-A, --add [<path>/]<basename> [ [<path>/]<archive_basename>]
add an archive to the database. An isolated
catalogue can also be used only if it has been
produced by dar version 1.2.0 or above. Why ?
Because, an isolated catalogue produced by older
version will always tell that no files are saved in
the archive of reference, in that case the solution
is to provide the archive itself as argument. An
optional second argument is the basename of the
archive if it is different from the first argument
(need for extraction of files). For example you
could have an isolated catalogue in first argument
and the basename of the original archive (where is
stored the data) as second argument. By default,
dar_manager will look for an archive of reference
in the command line used to create each archive,
but in some cases, it may be necessary to specify
the archive name (for example if you’ve changed its
name).
-l, --list displays the informations about the archives
compiled in the database. In particular, a number
is given to each archive, which is required to some
other option to design a particular archive within
the database. Nothing avoids you to feed the
database with several archive of the same basename
! You will just have to guess which one is asked
under this name. :-)
-D, --delete <number>[-<number>]
removes an archive (or a range of archive) from the
database. The number of the archive (or the min and
max number or the archive range) is correspond to
those given by the -l option. Note that all archive
number greater than the one(s) to be delete will be
decremented to keep continuous numbering of the
archive inside the database.
-b, --base <number> <new_archive_basename>
this option allows you to rename the archive
basename (used when restoring files from it)
-p, --path <number> <path>
this option allows you to change the location of a
given archive (used when restoring files from it)
-o, --options [list of option to pass to dar]
Specify the option to use when calling dar. Each
call erases the previous setting. Possible dar
options are all the available ones except "-x" and
simple arguments (the [list of path]) which will be
added by dar_manager itself.
-d, --dar [<path>] Set the path to dar. If no argument is given, dar
is expected to be located in the PATH
-r, --restore [list of files to restore]
dar_manager will restore all (an only) the given
files, asking for the proper archive only. Last
version of each file over several archive is based
on the modification time of the inode, thus if you
have a more recent backup that contains an old
version of a given file, a older archive could be
used to restore the file, if its last modification
time (mtime) is more recent. Note that files
listed after -r option, must never have an absolute
path. They will be restored under the directory
specified with -R option of dar (thus using -o
option), or by default, in subdirectories of the
current directory.
-w, --when <date> alters the -r option behavior: still restores the
files in the most recent version available but only
before the given date (versions of more recent
dates are ignored). The <date> must respect the
following format [ [
[year/]month/]day-]hour:minute[:second]. For
example "22:10" for 10 PM past 10 or the current
day, "7-22:10" for 10 PM past 10 the 7th of the
current month, "3/07-22:10" for the 7th of march at
22:10 of the current year, "2002/03/31-14:00:00"
the date of the first dar’s release ;-). The given
date must be in the past, of course, and is
compared to the "last modification" date of the
saved files and not to the date at which archives
have been done. Thus if a file has been changed
long ago but saved in a recent (full) archive, it
will be elected for restoration even for dates
older than the creation of the archive. In the
other way, a file saved long time ago with a mtime
that was set to a date in the future will not be
elected for restoration when giving the date at
which was done the archive.
-e, --extra <options>
pass some more options to dar. While the -o options
takes all that follows on the command line as
argument to pass to dar and write these in the
database, the -e option does not alter the database
and has only one argument. In other words, if you
need to pass several options to dar through the use
of the -e option, you need to use quotes (simple
quotes ’ or double quotes ") to enclose these
options. Example:
dar_manager -B database.dmd -e "-w -v -p -b -r -H 1" -r
some/files
-u, --used <number> list the files that the given archive owns as last
version available. Thus when no file is listed, the
given archive is no more useful in database, and
can be removed safely (-D option). If <number> is
zero, all available file are listed.
-f, --file <file> displays in which archive the given file is saved,
and what are the modification date (mtime) and
change date (ctime).
-s, --stats show the number of most recent files by archive.
This helps to determine which archive can be safely
removed from the database.
-m, --move <number> <number>
changes the order of archives in the database. The
first number is the number of the archive to move,
while the second is the place where it must be
shifted.
Archie order is important only in the case a file
to be restored has EA that has been saved in an
archive and data saved in another archive. This
takes place when making a differential backup for
file that have no change in data but changes in EA.
In that case, the database must be fed (-A option)
with archive in the order they have been created.
If dar_manager detects such a disorder, it issues a
warning is giving the name of the file that could
not be restored properly (only EA have not been
restored with the last version). Note that, if you
don’t use EA the order of archives in the database
has no importance.
-Q Do not display any message on stderr when not
launched from a terminal (for example when launched
from an at job or crontab). Remains that any
question to the user will be assumed a ’no’ answer,
which most of the time will abort the program.
-j, --jog when virtual memory is exhausted, as user to make
room before trying to continue. By default, when
memory is exhausted dar aborts.
-v, --verbose displays additional information about what it is
doing.
-h, --help display help usage
-V, --version display software version
EXIT CODES
dar_manager exits with the following code:
0 Operation successful.
1 see dar manual page for signification
2 see dar manual page for signification
3 see dar manual page for signification
7 see dar manual page for signification
8 see dar manual page for signification
11 and above
dar
called from dar_manager has exited with non zero status.
Substract 10 to this exit code to get dar’s exit code.
SIGNALS
dar_manager acts like dar (see dar man page for list of signals), upon
certain signal reception dar aborts cleanly
SEE ALSO
dar(1), dar_xform(1), dar_slave(1), dar_cp(1)
LIMITATIONS
at most 65534 archives can be compiled in a given database, which
should be enough for most users. Dar_manager does not support encrypted
archives for now and archive cannot neither be encrypted. See the FAQ
for a workaround.
KNOWN BUGS
none actually
AUTHOR
http://dar.linux.free.fr/
Denis Corbin
France
Europe