Re: hdup2 issues

Miek Gieben wrote:
> [On 03 May, @18:06, Robert Haskins wrote in "Re: [hdup-user] Re: hdup2 issu ..."]
> 
>>Let's "back up" a bit here. Would the python interface be *required*, or
> 
> 
> ghe :-)
> 
> 
>>would it be optional for those that want to use it? It would make much
>>more sense to me to have it as an option, so I can have my desktop users
>>run it that way if they want to but also have the CLI for servers that
>>don't have graphical interfaces.
> 
> 
> I'm not planning anything graphical and after yesterday I sort of
> abandoned the whole python idea.
> 
> As I had some time today I decided to check out 'dar'. Impressive tool
> I must say. If had known about this tool a couple of years ago I might
> not even have started hdup. It does a lot of things gnu tar can't (do
> good); such a slices (chunks in hdup), it has some lousy encryption
> and it also appears to have a remote backup/restore capability. So far
> so good...
> 
> But there are also some things that are lacking. Hdup2 now has the
> .nobackup stuff, with 'dar' I can try to fake this, but it looks
> difficult to do. Also the include/exclude stuff uses the good old
> globbing patterns - which I just kicked out hdup. But the main thing
> is that 'dar' cannot use a filelist with files that should be backed
> up. (There looks to be some support for this in the latest versions,
> but this doesn't help hdup now).
> 
> Basicly what hdup needs is a tar like backup tool, that
> - generates a tar file
> - can read a file with filenames and backs up everything in 
>   that list.
> - create incremental dumps
> 
> All tar like backup programs I look at (star, gnu tar, cpio, dar, libtar,
> ...) can do a subset of these things, but not all. The one that comes
> closests(?) is gnu tar, and that one has that annoying bug in it.
> 
> So, basicly, the best thing to do IMO is:
> 
> #1 fix gnu tar and see if I can get the patch into gnu tar. If that  
>   fails try to push it to Debian. That means maintaining 2 slightly
>   different version of hdup2, but it can be done.
> 
> #2 and maybe pull out the restore capability and create 2 tools,
>   hdup2-dump and hdup2-restore. But unless this yields some MAJOR
>   benefits for the hdup maintenance, it won't be done/released.
> 
> Any comments?
> 
> --
> grtz,
>   - Miek
> 
> http://www.miek.nl                      http://www.nlnetlabs.nl
> PGP Key ID: 0xB18453A1
> fingerprint: 002B B079 0DDA 7D44 2B5C  CAB0 C3B7 F943 B184 53A1
> 

Is there a potential shorter-term solution?

For example, is there a workaround or extra hdup-related util or 
quickfix that can help us deal with the annoying bug until it is more 
properly fixed?