[Box Backup] Box Backup 0.11rc2 on OS X 10.5

[Achim]

Hello Chris:

On Mon, 16 Mar 2009 22:08:49 +0000 (GMT), Chris Wilson <chris@qwirx.com>
wrote:
> Thanks, I had never heard of Cumulus but it's interesting reading. They 
> have implemented two features that I've wanted to implement in Box for a 
> while, but haven't had time: snapshots and S3 support. Their evaluation
is 
> also very interesting. I think I might give it a try.

I am about to submit some patches to the developers that enable Cumulus to
be compiled on OS X.

If you could think of a way to implement snapshots in Box Backup, that
would be fantastic. A hackish approach could be to use two different
bbackupd.conf: one with the "lazy" approach of monitoring files, and one
that uploads all files. You then switch between the two configurations
whenever you want to run a full sync/snapshot.

> was about three years ago that I last tested Box server on Darwin. I did 
> get all tests passing on MacOS X more recently, which makes me think that

> the problem might have been fixed.

So should I try to build again from SVN? I can also send you the logs per
e-mail if that helps you!

> Why? What's so important about folder timestamps anyway? Box Backup is 
> deliberately designed not to preserve them.

I can think of a couple of reasons to maintain folder timestamps in
addition to file timestamps:

* Backup should reflect the target data as closely as possible, including
folder timestamps 
* Ability to sort folder list by age (perhaps needed by some users)
* Applications may rely on past/future folder dates for some internal
reason (think application-internal archiving)
* Tar does it via the p switch (preserving permissions and timestamp of
files and folders)

Perhaps there is a middle way to add a configuration option: by default,
Box keeps acting the way it does, but by enabling
"--keep-folder-timestamps" it stores them accurately? Or is adding such
functionality too complicated?

> Unfortunately not. Box Backup is not rsync or rsync+encryption. It's an 
> encrypted filesystem with some backup features and the ability to do 
> *rsync-like* delta uploads of encrypted files.

OK, understood.

Again, folder timestamps and hardlinks would be a fantastic addition to Box
Backup.

Best regards, Achim