Re: [rdiff-backup-users] win32 success! and one little problem :)

[Greg Freemyer]

On Mon, 2004-01-05 at 16:13, David Kempe wrote:
> Greg Freemyer wrote:
> > Great work.  I assume you are saying that you have a pure win32 version
> > working.  ie. No use of the cygwin dll.
> 
> sorry Greg, I just couldn't get that to work.
> the c files for rdiff-backup gave me the same errors that I posted with 
> mingw32 with Visual Studio 6. Looks like they only compile with gcc from 
> cygwin or linux. and I tried your suggestion of compiling them with the 
> gcc from cygwin with the right flags, it (the .o file) compiles with 
> warnings, but then gives heaps more erros when you go onto the .dll.
> So I gave up on that and worked on paring back the cygwin version to as 
> small as possible. this is merely a result of that. sorry, I'm not that 
> brilliant at c to make it work :(

That is definately a difficult task.  Hopefully someone will do it
someday, but like you I don't have the resources to attack it right now.

> > A couple questions:
> > 
> > Are you using a native win32 /bin/sh, or a cygwin one?
> cygwin /bin/sh.exe
> 
Not a problem since you have cygwin.dll around anyway.
> 
> > What python are you using (win32 or cygwin)?
> 
> cywin.

Hopefully this is a relatively recently released version.  Cygwin.dll
1.5.x was released this summer and it was a major upgrade that added 2
GB+ file support.  All cygwin apps (i.e. python itself) had to be
recompiled to use the new functionality.
> 
> > Do you need the cygwin.dll installed at all on the installation
> > computer?
> 
> yes, but my setup.exe looks after that, and there should be no conflicts 
> with existing setups (except for the outlined /bin/sh problem) as its 
> all stored in its own self contained folder.

That sounds good.  Since cygwin is not really a release, but more a
collection of random projects, I never have understood how they do QA.

ie. New cygwin versions of projects get released all the time, but how
do you know what cygwin.dll's they work with.
> 
> > What is the status of backing up:
> >    Large files (over 2 GB used to be a problem in cygwin)
> 
> I haven't tested - would you like a copy to test? (mail me off list and 
> I will send you a link.) I haven't included any documentation or 
> licensing yet as its still in development, so I am reluctant to release 
> it to the world without at least a copy of the GPL :)

If the installation is fairly straight-forward, I would like to give it
a whirl.  Just e-mail me directly with the link.

FYI: If you used a 1.5.x version of cygwin, and a python compiled
against that, then the 2 GB limit should be gone.

If not, appropriate versions of both are now in the stable cygwin setup
branch I believe.

> 
> >    ACLs  (Access Control Lists)
> 
> according to http://pylibacl.sourceforge.net/ the pylibacl module 
> doesn't support cygwin.
> previously when I was using cygwin ssh and not plink I had a problem 
> where if your cygwin install didn't pick up on the permissions properly, 
> ssh couldn't determine the owner of the ssh keys and refused to use 
> them. On a FAT32 partition this was pretty impossible to get around. It 
> is possible with a cygwin variable, but that didn't work as we have a 
> Samba domain controller, which didn't mix well with it. So strangely 
> enough I have to use plink because of samba :)
> 
> Anyway, pylibacl support aside, I think that ACL/permission support in 
> cygwin is dodgy enough as to be a problem for many people. rdiff-backup 
> would need a native win32 acl module I would have thought.
> 
Unfortunately, I agree.  That is one of the reasons I did not pursue a
cygwin version very hard.  ACL support is not even released in the main
code yet, 

One way to make this work may be to write a win32 native C dll that
interfaces to the win32 acl api, then connect to that from rdiff-backup.

I may look into trying to do that at some point.

> >    Open files  (Most commercial packages use Open File Manager from St.
> > Bernard to make this work.  It can be configured for random backup
> > programs, but I have never tried to configure it before.) 
> 
> I did ask them. Basically, OFM works by detecting an SMB using accessing 
> shares, then provides something very similar to the WIN2K3 shadow copy 
> to that user. 

Now that would be an interesting project.  i.e. Getting rdiff-backup to
work with Win2k3 shadow copy (VSS).  I really like the way VSS is
structured.  (I haven't used it yet, so I don't know how well it is
implemented.)

> At around AU$900 for a license, its not something I am 
> going to go for - stopping the services is easy enough and I don't know 
> a client that can't afford to not have exchange/mssql stopped for an 
> hour or so each night. You might be different. Alternatively, both those 
> programs have backup/deleted items retaining setups, so you can get 
> around it that way.

Yes, it is expensive.  I'm always surprised they don't have a major
competitor.  I guess Microsoft got tired of seeing them making all that
money, thus VSS.

> for exchange I just set the deleted items retention to 30days and stop 
> the service and back it up. rdiff-backup can't do diffs on the database, 
> so you can't do it very often unless you have a large disk (I use 
> firewire).
> MSSQL can be configured to do dumps of its database pretty often, so you 
> can back up the dumps with rdiff-backup.
> 
> As for other abitrary files, there is no reason why OFM wouldn't work, 
> but it just relies on that smb user login method to tell when to offer 
> the open files.
> 
> 
> > Congratulations on your success.  I tried a get pure win32 version about
> > a year ago and gave up, so I know it was not a trivial effort.
> 
> A pure win32 version would that some rewriting of rdiff-backup I am not 
> prepared to undertake. Especially since the cygwin version just has the 
> same license and the installer is only 2.3meg.
> 
Understood.
> 
> > BTW: it would be great if you could put the above info on the wiki.
> 
> I'll try get to that this afternoon :)
> 
> dave
> 
> 
> 
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