Re: Re: Perfomance problem backupscript (more details and tests)

Les Mikesell <[email protected]> wrote:

> On Sun, 2005-10-09 at 07:39, Joerg Schilling wrote:
> > >
> > > If you are going to be this pedantic, please be equally
> > > pedantic in reference to star and mention exactly which
> > > version number has a working incremental mode.
> > 
> > Trying to be exact is different from being pedantic.
>
> I'm only interested in being as exact as necessary. Almost

Sorry, but I cannot believe this:

-	You are on a star related mailing list so you should
	always talk about the latest version of star unless
	you send a version number attached to the request.

	So why do _you_ omit the version nuber when talking
	about outdated star versions?

-	If we compare star with GNU tar, I asume that we all are 
	talking about the latest GNU tar version if no version
	number is used.

	So why do _you_ claim that known and reproducable
	bugs in GNU tar-1.15.1 (which is the latest published
	version) have been fixed already? 

So I hope _you_ will be more precise in future to make our
discussion easier. I am precise with my claims already.


> > What people understand by "tar" is what appeared on UNIX around 1977 and
> > what is SUSv2 specifies. Check out both, the SUSv2 standard and any UNIX
> > variant and you will find out what "tar" really supports.
>
> I understand the difference but the last time I used the old
> version of tar was on a freebsd 4.x long ago and it was
> unable to handle the 32-bit device numbers of that distribution.

So you gain confuse tar with GNU tar. FreeBSD-4.x uses GNU tar as tar.

BTW: If you did use star on FreeBSD, you would be able to handle
32 bit device numbers (the way ill way they are used on FreeBSD).
Note that the POSIX.1-1988 tar format does not support major or minor
with more than 21 bits. This is sufficient for UNIX 32 bit device
numbers but not for HP-UX (it uses 24 bits for the minor number)
and not for FreeBSD (because the minor number uses 32 bits in the 
minor number XXXX..XX AFAIR).

Star allows you to either to ignore POSIX.1-1988 and use -hpdev
to support 32 bit minor numbers or to use the SCHILY POSIX.1-2001 extensions.

GNU tar does not support 32 bit minors at all.


> I don't ever care to see that version again.  And, I'll
> venture a guess that an order of magnitude more people have
> gnutar as their one and only tar program than anything else.

If you don't care about versions, it is hard to have a discussion
with you.


> > As you should know, I am always referring to the most recent star
> > version. If you like to know when a specific feature has been 
> > introduced, please check the change logs....
>
> I and just about everyone else have come to depend on packaged
> programs bundled into distributions that are tested and have
> regular updates.  I might look at the change logs if they
> come along with the update, but what I really want to know
> is whether I can count on the star included with any particular
> distribution to interoperate with the one in some other
> particular distribution.

If you ignore current the star development, please don't contact me
but the maintainers of the outdated packages you are using.



> > I am sorry, but if you did not install a recent star on your machine
> > this is your fault.
>
> Does any version of star note the requirements for restoring? 
> I'm assuming a posix-like filesystem is needed and no mount
> points in the tree where you want the files restored, but
> that has not been made clear anywhere that I can find.

????

Install a recent star and read the man page.....


> > Well, star did introduce this 8 years ago, it is one of many reasons
> > why star is much faster than other tar implementations.
>
> Does it work in -copy mode?  I started a copy of about 100 gigs
> on Friday afternoon and it isn't finished Sunday evening. There
> are many errors on the screen like:
>
> star: pc/dns1/833/f%2f/fetc/fbigstart/freinit/fS30httpd: Linkcount below
> zero (-4)
> star: pc/dns1/833/f%2f/fetc/fbigstart/freinit/fS10sshd: Linkcount below
> zero (-5)

So you did not use star correctly. You did definitely _not_ copy
a single and consistent file tree but you either have a loopback mount
active or you did tell star to include at least parts of the 
filesystem more than once.

So this is your fault: read the man page and follow the EXAMPLES
for using -copy


> > I am always as exact as possible. If you install/use an outdated version
> > of star, it's your fault.
>
> What I use is almost always the expert choice of the person
> packaging a program for a distribution.  That means it won't

If you believe in people who are no experts (because they use outdated
versions), it is your problem. If you like to complain, please don't
do it here but do it to the "expert" you are referring to....


> > As you cannot use the incremental features without understanding them
> > (which means reading the man page), people who use the feature should
> > know how it works.
>
> They have to know quite a lot about filesystems to figure that
> out.  I doubt that anyone not already familiar with dump would
> figure out the requirements for restoring incrementals.

They just need to follow the EXAMPLES section in the man page and
be careful to the notes mentioned in the man page.


> > If you run a OS distribution that does not check for newer versions
> > and that does not update programs if apropriate, you either know this
> > and do it yourself or you need to avoid this distribution because it is 
> > not doing a good job.
>
> The distributions I use provide updates, but only bug and security
> fixes, not behavior-changing modifications.  The lastest version
> I can find included in fedora FC4 is 
> # rpm -q star
> star-1.5a54-2

There is nothing like star-1.5a54-2 

There is star-1.5a54 and if somebody would read the announcements/Changelogs
for the more recent versions, it should be obvious why star-1.5a54 should
be avoided in favor of newer versions. Note that 1.5a54 is nearly one year 
old now.


> but that's a bleeding-edge distribution whose purpose is to
> get the first large scale testing on new packages.  I run many
> more machines on Centos3 which has a more conservative
> star-1.5a08-4 package.

Do you really like to talk about THREE year old versions now?



Jörg

-- 
 EMail:[email protected] (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
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