Re: [BackupPC-users] XferLog.z : How do I read this thing?

[Timothy J M. <tm...@ob...>]

"Jeffrey J. Kosowsky" <bac...@ko...> wrote on 02/10/2012 08:55:34 
AM:

> Timothy J Massey wrote at about 17:40:43 -0500 on Thursday, February 9, 
2012:
>  > Bowie Bailey <Bowie_Bailey@BUC.com> wrote on 02/09/2012 05:01:32 PM:
>  > 
>  > > On 2/9/2012 4:51 PM, Timothy J Massey wrote:
>  > > > Hello!
>  > > >
>  > > > I've set up a new backup server, and for the first time I haven't
>  > > > disabled compression.  BackupPC is now creating log files in 
(what it
>  > > > is claiming is) .z format.  How do I read these?  I've tried zcat
>  > > > ("not in gzip format"), uncompress (no error, but no file), and 
unzip
>  > > > (end of central directory not found).  "file XferLog.0.z" says 
that
>  > > > this file is "data" (which doesn't help...).
>  > > >
>  > > > So, how do I read these files, and even better:  how do I go back 
to
>  > > > my plaintext logs?
>  > > >
>  > > > (I *knew* there were great reasons why I have always immediately
>  > > > disable compresson on all of my backup servers!  :)  ) 
>  > > 
>  > > Backuppc uses a special compression format.  You can read it with 
the
>  > > BackupPC_zcat program.  On my machine, it is located in
>  > > /usr/local/BackupPC/bin.
>  > 
>  > I love BackupPC, but that is the *dumbest* thing *ever*.  (Sorry, 
Craig! 
>  > :)  ).
> 
> Why? 
> 
> BackupPC compresses and pools the log files which is consistent with
> the handling of all other files in the pc tree (except for the
> 'backups' info file). This keeps everything streamlined and
> consistent.

At the price of making it, at a very minimum, very awkward to deal with. I 
can't easily cat, grep, tail, etc.  I have to perform jumping-jacks to do 
any of these things, just so the files can be compressed.

And why would *log* files necessarily be handled consistently with backup 
data files?  Do image manipulation programs store their log files in 
.GIF's?

In any case, the why or why not is not terribly important:  it *does*.  I 
asked if there was a way to make it not.  I can only assume from the 
silence that there is not.

>  > And even if you for some reason thought that was a *brilliant* idea, 
why 
>  > wouldn't you change the extension?  Would bpz be so hard?  :)
> 
> Because it uses zLib compression and I believe .Z is a common
> extension for that. This is not the DOS/Windows world where you just
> willy-nilly make up new 3 letter extensions for every program under
> the sun.

No.  .Z is *not* simply an extension for "I used zLib on this".  .Z is the 
extension used for files created by the "compress" command.  Try using the 
"compress" command on a BackupPC log file...

And whether UNIX or DOS, having two *incompatible* file types share the 
same extension is just a really bad idea.  Would you expect to find a .gz 
file that couldn't be handled by gzip?!?  Oh, excuse me, was that neither 
helpful nor intelligent?

Tim Massey

 
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