mount a dumpfile

[Warren Block]

On Sat, 2 Apr 2011, Chris Rees wrote:

> On 2 Apr 2011 00:08, "Warren Block" <wblock at wonkity.com> wrote:
> >
> > Is it possible to mount a dump(8) dumpfile?  restore(8) obviously knows everything about the file structure, and restore -i is nearly a read-only mount_dump already.
> 
> Restore -i isn't really anything like a mount; it works on a stream (which is why it works on tapes and stdin) where the first but is the file list, telling restore how far to skip to
> get the file. This is why ls is fast on it, but when you tell it to restore it then takes a little time.

Sorry, I didn't explain very well.  Use mdconfig to create a device 
backed by a dumpfile.  Then factor out the code from restore to treat 
that layout as a filesystem.  Conceptually, it'd be similar to
mount_cd9660.

Which is another way to ask the question: does anything besides 
restore(8) understand the dumpfile format?  libarchive does not, 
unfortunately.

> If you want proper interactive backups, I'd respectfully suggest you 
> start using rsync incremental backup, for which I have a script sy 
> home I'd you're interested.

It's malus versus citrus, but it's always interesting to see alternate 
approaches.