[Now I'm bottom posting... :)] >> --- >> I'm not aware, so if I'm wrong perhaps someone could correct me, but >> I'd like a command to, in essence, do a comprehensive >> --verify-all-files-in-the-archive. [I'm pretty sure such a thing >> doesn't exist, at least I never saw it in the docs.] >> >> This would apply all deltas to *all* files (back to the oldest copy) >> and compare the stored >> hashes at the time of backup to the rebuilt file. [Note all the >> files, not just those in a particular target date/delta.] >> >> This wouldn't verify that every file would be correct in every delta >> version, but it would, I think, get as close as one might come to >> that.
> I agree, something like this would be great. Although with the speed > issue's I'm having it may not be practical (i.e. time feasible) to > reconstruct every file this way before comparing it to a signature > hash. I would propose that rdiff-backup store some additional meta- > data which would consist of signature hashes of the delta files as > they exist on the disk after rdiff-backup is finished with a backup > (similar to what yafic does - http://www.saddi.com/software/yafic/). > This should make the verification process much faster (yafic takes > less than two hours to verify an rdiff-backup repo that takes over > eight hours to --verify-at-time on my setup). Note that it would not > replace the --verify-at-time functionality, which would still be > necessary to verify the integrity of files as they existed before the > backup. But it would provide a fast way to verify the integrity of an > rdiff-backup repository. Let me address this. Simply checking the a hash of the delta isn't nearly enough. If the meta-data on how to apply that delta is gone or corrupt, you're screwed too. So, if you're going to calc and store a hash, you should store a hash of both the meta-data and the delta. Small nit, but thought I should mention it. [I should note that I have never examined the code, so I'm speaking from a theoretical point of view - but I've asked about these things pretty carefully, so I'm pretty sure I'm clear on how things are handled... I'm welcome to be corrected if I'm wrong.] -Greg _______________________________________________ rdiff-backup-users mailing list at rdiff-backup-users@nongnu.org http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/rdiff-backup-users Wiki URL: http://rdiff-backup.solutionsfirst.com.au/index.php/RdiffBackupWiki