Networker

[Networker] Should core directories/files be skipped?

2007-09-12 13:07:39
Subject: [Networker] Should core directories/files be skipped?
From: George Sinclair <George.Sinclair AT NOAA DOT GOV>
To: NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU
Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2007 13:03:44 -0400
Hi,

By default, the 'Unix standard directives' skips all core files as:

<< / >>
       skip: tmp_mnt
       +skip: core

This is the directive I usually use for most clients, but I've found that this causes any file or directory with the name 'core' to get skipped (not surprising, of course), even if it lives under some other file system other than / (that seems kinda surprising). I would have thought that in order for a directory named 'core' to get skipped under, say, '/export/disk2/core', assuming /disk2 is a separate file system, that there would need to be another entry for this in the directive but apparently not. Anyway, maybe skipping core files is not a bad idea (some can be quite large), but maybe we should still remove the line that does this so in case a user, or some software package, creates a directory named 'core' it will get backed up? For example, consider the following directory:

/var/apache/tomcat/webapps/tomcat-docs/catalina/docs/api/org/apache/catalina/core

This does contain data files. Also, I've seen some core directories, under various OS patch install directories, for Java, too, and there are a lot of directories on Linux clients named 'core' that are all buried down umpteen levels like /usr/src/kernels/2.6.9-42.0.10.EL-i686/net/core, etc. Hmm ...

Any consensus on this? Any way to skip 'core' files but not directories? Maybe just remove the line from the directive and get these previously skipped areas backed up on the next fulls?

George

--
George Sinclair - NOAA/NESDIS/National Oceanographic Data Center
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