README
1This progam reads a VMS backuptape.
2
3WARNING: This version is still well short of the full features of
4BACKUP. Hopefully this file should somewhat document the various
5quirks and limitations (although it doesn't do as good a job of
6describing the things which are completely missing).
7
8If you have patches to send in or reports of success and/or failure, I
9guess for now the place to send them is kingdon@cyclic.com. In the
10future there is a good chance there will be some mailing list for
11VMSBACKUP or for "Free-VMS file utilities" or some such category; you
12might want to see if http://www.free-vms.org/ has something more
13up-to-date than this paragraph (as of this writing the only thing
14there is that BACKUP is listed in the task list). Currently the
15latest VMSBACKUP release should be at
16 ftp://ftp.wku.edu/vms/free-vms/testing
17
18To find out what version you have on unix use the -V option. On VMS,
19ANALYZE/IMAGE/HEADER VMSBACKUP.EXE and look for the part where it says
20"image file identification:". In the sources look at getoptmain.c or
21build.com (which will have the same version number, unless someone
22messed up).
23
24To build on unix, "make". To build on VMS, "@build".
25
26Known bugs include:
27
28* Poor handling of redundancy groups. If you create a saveset with
29/GROUP_SIZE=0, then vmsbackup will be do just fine, but if the group
30size is nonzero (the default), then vmsbackup/LIST will tend to list
31files twice.
32
33* On VMS systems probably cannot read tapes (only savesets in .BCK files on
34disk). Maybe it could be done if you mount the tape non-foreign, but I don't
35know of anyone who has tried that. Reading tapes does work on non-VMS
36systems (at least with version 3.0; presumably with more recent versions too).
37
38* Dates are not printed on non-VMS systems; where the dates would be
39there is nothing. This can be fixed if someone wants to write a
40portable equivalent for SYS$ASCTIM.
41
42* We do not yet print dates for files (just the date for the saveset itself).
43
44* One cannot specify a file to list to, as in /LIST=file.
45
46* /LIST/FULL prints much less than BACKUP; I haven't decoded most of
47the brh_dol_k_file info yet.
48
49* Some of the record formats and record attributes are not printed
50using the same text that BACKUP uses. This is just a matter of going
51through and figuring out what it should be in each case (would
52synergize nicely with testsuite, below, because then we could just run
53the testsuite on vmsbackup and on BACKUP and make sure they agree).
54Extraction is even worse; anything other than a text file is unlikely
55to get extracted in any useful manner.
56
57Related software:
58
59From "OpenVMS Freeware (VS0185)", there is a FASTBACK program to
60access BACK/PHYS or HSC <Backup> saves as disks. FASTBACK relates to
61physical backups (or images of disks made with tools such as the unix
62dd), and VMSBACKUP is for regular (saveset) backups.
63
64TODO:
65
66* Anyone want to write a testsuite?
67
68* Implement lots more features.
69
70* Write documentation, in VMS HELP format (and/or HTML).
71
72Open questions:
73
74* Is there a documented standard for what savesets look like? From
75DEC or from http://www.bbc.com or from anyone else?
76
77History:
78
79The tape program is orginally written by John Douglas Carey and
80the pattern matching routine by some unknown on the net.
81
82The remote tape option use the rmtlib from mod.sources.
83
84A good way to archive remotetape access for users with only
85a local account is to create a "netwide" user tar and let
86the remote tape programs do suid to user tar.
87
88The program is tested on vax and sun.
89
90
91Sven-Ove Westberg
92Lulea University of Technology
93S-951 87 Lulea, Sweden
94UUCP: sow@luthcad.UUCP
95UUCP: {decvax,philabs,seismo}!mcvax!enea!luthcad!sow
96