Re: [BackupPC-users] Looking at BackupPC notation clarification

[Les M. <les...@gm...>]

Ted Hilts wrote:
> After printing over a half inch of documentation and reading same I
> discovered that I needed to get some clarification.
> 
> EG: __TOPDIR__
> __TOPDIR__/pc/$host/config.pl (I get the $host as respresnting some
> value and config.pl is a configuration file and __TOPDIR__ is some
> important directory defined for the backup system. The clarification I
> need is whether the directory is surrounded as in __some-directory__ or
> just "some-directory" (without the quotes).
> 
> Then there are symbols as in $Conf{ServerPort} which looks like it is a
> variable to which some value is assigned by joining this symbol to the
> variable as in $Conf{ServerPort}=value.
> 
> I am considering BackupPC on Ubuntu 8.04 and Ubuntu Lucid as well as
> Debian. On Ubuntu 8.04 it is installed and visible if one uses "ps -A".
> It seems to be located at /usr/share/backuppc/bin/BackupPC.
> 
> I tried the one liner command (su -s /bin/bash __BACKUPPCUSER__) to see
> if it was alive but there is some problem with my ID or root ID or some
> other ID or my use of the notation or all. I did not understand the
> note: "If the BackupPC user is configured with /bin/false as the shell,
> you can use the -s option to su to explicitly run a shell". Obviously,
> there must be something in the configuration file that deals with name
> and ID or a default name and ID I missed. So before I go any further it
> looks like I need to properly understand the symbolic notations or
> nothing will ever work.
> 
> Hope I can get some clarification so I can get this going. I was hoping
> there would be some default set up right out of the box to give me a
> starting point or working example. 

If you are looking at an uninstalled copy of the backuppc code, the __VARIABLE__ 
names are tokens that are replaced with real values that you supply during the 
installation process.  In an installed (or distribution packaged) version you 
use the actual values instead of the token name.  This may be a little confusing 
in the case of distribution-packaged versions where the install process was done 
before packaging and you don't know the values.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
     les...@gm...