[Box Backup] Directory mtime, etc.

[Ben Summers]

On 21 Dec 2004, at 03:21, Joe Krahn wrote:

> Are directory attributes only partly supported, i.e. no mtime storage?
> If so, any plans to change this?

Not really. It's kind of difficult to restore mtimes without delving 
into the filesystem. Attribute data is restored as best it can be.

>
> Directory attributes probably need to be stored in a seperate file on 
> the server; I don't know if this is already the case.

You have the source code!

Files are not stored on the server as a mirror of the directory tree, 
as this would be really rather troublesome. You can consider the 
directory attributes to be a "separate file", even though in reality 
they're just a chunk within a large directory record.

>
> The contents of that file could also hold per-directory settings, sort 
> of like .htaccess files in apache, except that it's in a special file 
> on the backup server. This would be one way to handle complicated 
> exclusion/inclusion lists, by splitting them up into sveral smaller 
> parts.

This would be at the cost of increased complexity in the code, more 
network traffic, and a change in the relationship between client and 
server which would make it much harder to see the configuration of the 
system. (Much like how the Windows registry makes it harder to see 
what's going on when compared to text files in /etc under UNIX.)

Ben