> Hi Baba,
>
> The change that was put in is a utime system call to restore the atime
> after a backup (and after a write during restore).  This function call
> changes the ctime.  I do not know of a way to update the atime without
> changing the ctime.
> I am interested in why you key on the ctime instead of either
> the access time or the modification time.
>                                 John Viksne

John,

There are several reasons why one SHOULD use ctime instead of mtime to decide
on when to back up a file:

  If you rename a file (mv):
  you may have to recover it using it's original name.

  If you change permissions or ownership of a file (chown/chgrp):
  the recovered file will have the original permissions/ownership.

  If you copy a file with mtime (cp -p):
  you may have to recover it using it's original name.

  If you extract a tar file without modifying the mtime (tar wo/-m):
  you may have to reextract the tar file.

Personally, I would vote to see the atime change at backup time, rather
than the ctime.

Michael Vogt
vogt AT raven.nist DOT gov.
301-975-2886