cpio explanation required

[grega]

Maybe someone can explain this ...

I have taken a full backup of a server using find . -print -depth | cpio -ocB > /dev/rmt/0

I can do a full restore using cpio -icvdumB -I /dev/rmt/0

Let's say I only want to restore /home/user1/* and /home/user2/*

1st way to do this is to say cpio -icvdumB -I /dev/rmt/0 "/home/user1/*" "/home/user2/*"

This works fine.

Now, lets say I have a script to do the restore ...

#!/bin/ksh
RES_LIST="/home/user1/* /home/user2/*"
cpio -icvdumB -I /dev/rmt/0 ${RES_LIST}

This doesn't work, and I reckon it's because of the syntax which cpio requires when specifying patterns to restore. So I try this ...

#!/bin/ksh
RES_LIST="\"/home/user1/*\" \"/home/user2/*\""
cpio -icvdumB -I /dev/rmt/0 ${RES_LIST}

Now, I would expect this to work, because when using set -x to run the script, the command is exactly the same as the 1st one I used above from the command line. However, this doesn't work :-( Aaaaaargh!

The *only* way I have achieved what I want, is to put a list of all the directories I want to restore in a control file (1 directory per line) and doing

cpio -icvdumB -I /dev/rmt/0 -E /path/to/control/file

This works a treat

Now, this isn't a problem but I was wondering if anyone can explain why what should work doesn't! In practive I'll want to restore a lot more than 2 user directories.

BTW, all this is done on Solaris, but will be implemented on SCO - should there be any difference, given cpio is "native"?

Greg.

 

[unix42]

I'm suprised the first one works....
when using the find command with a "." the resulting list of files should be listed as "relative" (ie with a ./path/filename) which I would not expect cpio to match with a path that starts with a / or an "absolute" reference

the other problem could be that you would need to escape the asterisks
RES_LIST="\"/home/user1/\*\" \"/home/user2/\*\""

unix42

 

[grega]

You're right about the 1st one, and I understand the difference between doing a find . ... cpio and a find /home .... cpio. I just explained what I did badly!

As for escaping the asterisks, I've tried that too. That's why I was using set -x during execution to make sure the shell wasn't expanding the *.

Greg.