[rdiff-backup-users] Re: Testsuite for Mac OS X backup systems

[Andrew Ferguson]

On Jan 11, 2009, at 9:20 AM, Oliver Mulatz wrote:
> Hi Andrew,
>
> most probably you already know of this Mac OS X
> backup system testing suite, but just in case you don't:
>
> http://slagwerks.com/blog/index.php/tag/backup/
> http://www.n8gray.org/code/backup-bouncer/

Hi Oliver,

Yes, rdiff-backup does quite well on that suite. I have also worked  
with the author to add new tests, based on capabilities which rdiff- 
backup has and it didn't test (Unicode filenames, and permissions on  
symbolic links).

thanks,
Andrew


For those who are curious about the details:

- Rdiff-backup was at version 1.2.1 when the test suite was released.  
That version passed everything except the following: extended  
attributes on symbolic links, the busy (Z) Finder attribute on  
folders, BSD filesystem flags, and Mac OS X ACLs.

- Version 1.2.2 added support for extended attributes on symbolic  
links, and fixed the support for the busy attribute.

- The ability to backup BSD filesystem flags will be added during the  
new development branch. I have been testing it in my environment for a  
year, but have not included it in the stable release because Python  
lacked an easy way to test whether the OS supported filesystem flags  
(my patch also adds support for Linux filesystem flags, and converting  
between the two kinds).

- Supporting Mac OS X ACLs will require a new Python library, similar  
to the POSIX and Windows ACL libraries. Mac ACLs, although they use  
the POSIX API, are closer to Windows ACLs in nature, so they're their  
own hybrid implementation, requiring their own (non-existent) Python  
library.

- Native Mac software has access to a system call which copies  
everything properly. Because one of rdiff-backup's main features is OS- 
independent networked backup, we cannot use that system call, and have  
to implement copy code for each piece of OS or FS metadata.