samba - Dec 2002 - bug: smbtar and incremental backup

Program: smbtar
Package: RH7.3 samba-client-2.2.7-1.7.3

Code is the same in branch SAMBA-TNG revision 1.8.2.1 and branch Main
revision 1.9, and hasn't been modified for almost three years. The line
numbers listed below are in referance to brance Main revision 1.9 as listed
here:
http://cvs.samba.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/samba/source/script/smbtar?annotate=1.9

Problem:

When calling smbtar with the [i]ncremental option, it still performs a full
dump.

Solutions for smbtar:

Either change the smbtar script from:

82:    i) # [i]ncremental
83:       tarargs=${tarargs}g
84:       ;;


82:    i) # [i]ncremental
83:       tarargs=${tarargs}g
84:       clientargs="-c 'tarmode inc'"
85:       ;;

Or: remove ${clientargs} from the script.

I don't know enough about the differance between the solutions to suggest
one over the other. I just know that either solution seems to work, and the
first one makes it still print the nice little tarmode is now bla, bla, bla
line in verbose mode.

Another option would be to allow -T[args] options to override the tarmode
[option] settings the way that it seems to be documented that tar [args]
from in a smbclient session does. Maybe that should be done anyway. Again I
don't know enough about the affects to say if this is a good idea.

Hopefully someone has a minute to commit this to CVS before the next
release, and in the mean time I hope I've made this clear enough for people
who would like the incremental option to work using smbtar to fix their own
scripts.

Jacob Anawalt

I forgot, there is a comment about the tarmode needing to be set to fix a
fix that changed the default to not archive system and hidden files.

I didn't test to see if this was still the case, but it sounds like changing
the tarmode to inc is the better option, unless the -T[args] are allowed to
override the tarmode and -T flags are added for system and hidden files, or
if just calling tarmode without specifying an option still grabs those files
(it says it is going to).

Ie: -c 'tarmode'

Maybe the tar system and hidden files flags should be added for tarmode and
tar/-T anyway to avoid any misunderstanding of whether an archive is going
to contain those files or not.

Jacob Anawalt
> I don't know enough about the differance between the solutions to
suggest
> one over the other. I just know that either solution seems to work, and
the
> first one makes it still print the nice little tarmode is now bla, bla,
bla
> line in verbose mode.
>
> Another option would be to allow -T[args] options to override the tarmode
> [option] settings the way that it seems to be documented that tar [args]
> from in a smbclient session does. Maybe that should be done anyway. Again
I
> don't know enough about the affects to say if this is a good idea.
>
> Hopefully someone has a minute to commit this to CVS before the next
> release, and in the mean time I hope I've made this clear enough for
people
> who would like the incremental option to work using smbtar to fix their
own
> scripts.
>
> Jacob Anawalt
>
>
>
>
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