inodes are no longer constant across VFAT mounts at kernel 2.2.14

[Norman Back]

Hi David & Alan

Thanks for your response.

> On Sun, 23 Jan 2000, Norman Back wrote:
>
> > Hi Alan
> >
> > I'm not sure what you mean by 'legal', however it does
> break software that
> > depends on constant inodes such as tar -g. This means I
> can't use linux to
> > do incremental backups of vfat filestore (or any other fat
> filestore) using
> > tar -g. I see this as a step backwards for fat filestore
> compatibility. Is
> > there someway I can undo the change?
>
> Yes. Downgrade to an older kernel. tar simply wasn't designed for
> file-systems clearly not designed at all, such as fat/vfat.
>
> Maybe tar --newer [date] can do the trick for you. Of course, the best
> idea is not to use fat/vfat to store anything important...

Hmm. I have a dual boot PC and use linux to back everything up to another
box. Unfortunately I need to run Windows 95 and it doesn't seem to work with
ext2. I've had another look at tar --newer. It isn't good enough. It can
miss files requiring archive.

For example:
mkdir dir1
# place lots of files under dir1
tar --newer
mv dir1 dir2 # dir2 has dir1's modification time
mkdir dir1
# place lots of files under dir1
tar --newer # does not archive dir2 so dir2's files will be lost on recovery
of drive.

However if tar -g had been used instead of tar --newer dir2's contents would
be archived correctly because it checks the name and inode against the
'snapshot' file.

Any other sugestions? I don't like the idea of retaining an old version of
kernel simply for archiving. It is possible that some later enhancement of
linux (or fat filestore) will preclude its use in the future.

> /David Weinehall
>   _                                                                 _
>  // David Weinehall <tao en acc.umu.se> /> Northern lights wander      \\
> //  Project MCA Linux hacker        //  Dance across the
> winter sky //
> \>  http://www.acc.umu.se/~tao/    </   Full colour fire           </
>
>


Norman



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