$Id: README.dumptool,v 1.1 2002/01/15 04:14:57 shadow Exp $

This is the README for dumptool, a program to interactively restore
AFS volume dump files.


INTRODUCTION

Dumptool arose out of a need here at NRL to perform maintenance of
MR-AFS (Multi-Resident AFS) volumes.  After it was written, we found
that it worked great on standard AFS volumes as well, and relatively
few changes were required to make it compile with a standard AFS
installation.

Dumptool provides an interface similar to the interactive Unix restore;
given a dump file, a user can navigate through the filesystem inside
the dump using familiar commands such as "cd" and "ls".  Also provided
is a "cp" command to copy individual files out of the dump into a
normal filesystem space.  This eliminates the need to restore an
entire volume just to retrieve a single file.

Dumptool was written at the Naval Research Laboratory by Ken Hornstein
<kenh@cmf.nrl.navy.mil>.  The latest and greatest version of dumptool
can always be found in the AFS contrib directory at:

/afs/transarc.com/public/afs-contrib/dumptool/


INSTALLATION & OPERATION

The standard Makefile target will build a dumptool for a vanilla AFS
installation.  The "mrafs" target will build a dumptool that can
operate on MR-AFS dumps.  In either case, you may need to change some
of the Makefile variables to reflect your site; see the Makefile for
more information.

Once dumptool is built successfully, you can run it on any AFS dump
file.  Without any additional arguments, dumptool will scan the dump file,
build indexes of all listed vnodes, and present a prompt (">") that
accepts the following commands:

	ls	Lists files in the current directory.  Filename globbing
		(e.g., wildcards such as * ?) are supported via the system
		fnmatch() function.  Accepts the following flags:

	    -l	Generates a "long" listing, similar to the -l switch for
		the Unix ls.  Displays Unix mode mask, owner, group,
		and file size.
	    -i  Displays volume, vnode, and uniquifier for each matching
		file in the format volume.vnode.uniquifier.  Note that
		the volume displayed is that of the _parent_ volume,
		which in the case of a backup volume is the _original_
		volume from which it was generated.
	    -F  Append / to filenames for directories, @ for symlinks,
		and * for files which have the execute bits set.
	    -R  Recurse through all subdirectories.
	
	cd	Change the current directory

	cp	Copy a file from the dump.  Note that globbing is NOT
		supported, and you must give a filename (the Unix
		idiom of just giving a destination directory for the
		second argument to cp will NOT work).
	
	vcp	Copy a file from the dump, by the vnode.  The first
		argument is the vnode number, optionally followed by
		the uniqifier.  E.g:

		vcp 126278 /tmp/file1
		vcp 126278.43289 /tmp/file2
	
	quit	Exits dumptool.
	exit


ADDITIONAL OPTIONS TO DUMPTOOL

Dumptool supports a number of command-line options.  They are detailed
below:

	-v	Verbose mode.  Output additional information during dump
		processing.  Each -v will increate output.

	-f	Force dump processing.  Attempt to continue processing
		a dump even when some errors are detected.  Not completely
		tested.
	
	-i	Inode dump.  Dump a list of all files in the volume,
		with their volume/vnode/uniqifier information.


SUPPORT FOR MR-AFS

Dumptool also supports the extra information in MR-AFS dumps, and
provides some extra commands/options for dealing with MR-AFS dumps:

Additional command line options:

	-d	Dump all residency filenames in the dump file to standard
		output.
	
	-t 	Residency tag information.  Allows a user to specify the
		tag of a residency if the rsserver is not available.
		Format of option is Residency/Tag
	
	-r	Residency filesystem information.  Allows a user to specify
		the residency filesystem information if dumptool is not
		run on the same host as the residency in the dump.  Format
		of option is Residency/Type/Size/Algorithm.

Additional commands:

	file	Displays to standard output the residency filename of a
		given dump filename.  All residencies available are shown.


CAVEATS

The user interface needs some work.  "ls" doesn't support nearly as many
options as the standard Unix one.  "cp" also doesn't have all of the features
found in common Unix variants.

Right now two passes are done through the dump file to scan all vnodes.
With some clever work this could be sped up somewhat and changed to only
do a single scan.


MODIFYING DUMPTOOL

I welcome changes to dumptool, but I have some guidelines.

First, I DEMAND that the changes be sent in context diff format.  I prefer
unidiff (diff -u), but standard context diffs are okay.  It's extremely
difficult to deal with new code in any other way.

If the changes you want to do require some significant
rearchitecturing, it might be a good idea to contact me first.  That
way we can coordinate the modifications in a meaningful way (I might
have made changes since the last released version).

If you're making MR-AFS specific changes, please follow the example
I've set and protect them with #ifdef RESIDENCY.

And please ... follow my code style, okay?  I always try to follow
whatever wacky code style I find in source code that I modify, and I
think it's only polite for you to do the same.


CONTACT INFORMATION

As always, please send comments, suggestions, or new features to me,
Ken Hornstein <kenh@cmf.nrl.navy.mil>.  Shar and enjoy.
