Interim backup tool
# $Header: /CVSROOT/public/scylla-charybdis/md5backup/DESCRIPTION,v 1.4 2005/07/21 20:57:27 tino Exp $
# $Log: DESCRIPTION,v $
# Revision 1.4  2005/07/21 20:57:27  tino
# Changes according to new script bin/md5restore.sh
#
# Revision 1.3  2004/10/05 03:02:13  tino
# "nice", security lack fixed, new sparse files handling, bin/compare.sh
# Details see ChangeLog
#
# Revision 1.2  2004/09/29 00:02:57  tino
# prepared new distribution

md5backup is an interim filesystem to filesystem backup on my way to
build a backup utility which suits all my needs.  To use it, you need
a second hard drive which is used as the backup media.  Optionally you
can do a networked backup, too, however this feature is not completely
developed today.

Currently no metadata is backed up.  It only protects the data inside
files.  <b>This currently is not able to backup sparse files</b> (most
often databases which must be backed up by other means or cache
files which can be ignored safely).

Please note, that <b>there is no real restore function yet</b>!  There
now is <A HREF=/md5backup/bin/md5restore.sh>bin/md5restore.sh</A>
which can be used to restore a file interactively, but it is painfully
slow and braindead to use.  So you definitively don't want to restore
complete with it yet and must be root to use it.  Have a look at <A
HREF=/md5backup/doc/restore.txt>doc/restore.txt</A> as well.

Sorry, there is no Wiki/FAQ/etc. yet.  If I ever find some time I will
prepare one.

md5backup is usable today, <b>I backup all my production Internet
servers with it</b> which run RedHat 9, SuSe 7.2, SuSE 9.0 and Debian
Sarge.  Just run <A
HREF=/md5backup/bin/dobackup.sh>bin/dobackup.sh</A>, this shall setup
everything for you, too.  Networked backup is possible too using
scylla+charybdis, please look into the announcements of 0.3.10 below.

The main feature of md5backup is, that it stores the files under their
content's MD5 sum, such that you can check the files integrity on the
backup volume easily.

Please note that md5backup was written such, that it shall work
reliable in <b>any</b> circumstances.  However I cannot give you any
guarantee that it can protects your valuable data!  However I trust
it.  All scripts I use can be found in the <A
HREF=/md5backup/bin/>bin/ directory</A>.  For more information, have a
look into the <A HREF=/md5backup/doc/>doc/ directory</A> and read <A
HREF=/md5backup/doc/sc-backup.txt>sc-backup.txt</A>.

<b>New for the upcomming 0.4.x:</b>

You need <A HREF=http://sqlite.org/>SQLite</A> to compile md5backup
(<A HREF=/download/sqlite-copy.tgz>local copy of SQLite source
code</A>).