Provided by: dar_2.7.3-1_amd64 bug

NAME

       dar_manager - compiles several archives contents in a database to ease file restoration

SYNOPSIS

       dar_manager [-v] -C [<path>/]<database> [-z <algo>]

       dar_manager   [-v]   -B   [<path>/]<database>  -A  [<path>/]<basename>  [-9  <min-digits>]
       [[<path>/]<archive_basename>]

       dar_manager [-v] -B [<path>/]<database> -l

       dar_manager [-v] -B [<path>/]<database> -D <number>[-<number>]

       dar_manager [-v] -B [<path>/]<database> -b <number> <new_archive_basename>

       dar_manager [-v] -B [<path>/]<database> -p <number> <path>

       dar_manager [-v] -B [<path>/]<database> -o [list of options to pass to dar]

       dar_manager [-v] -B [<path>/]<database> -d [<path to dar command>]

       dar_manager [-v] -B [<path>/]<database> [-N] [-k]  [-w  <date>]  [-e  "<extra  options  to
       dar>"] -r [list of files to restore]

       dar_manager [-v] -B [<path>/]<database> -u <number>

       dar_manager [-v] -B [<path>/]<database> -f file

       dar_manager [-v] -B [<path>/]<database> -s

       dar_manager [-v] -B [<path>/]<database> -m <number> <number>

       dar_manager [-v] -B [<path>/]<database> -c

       dar_manager [-v] -B [<path>/]<database> -i

       dar_manager [-v] -B [<path>/]<database> -@ { <filename> | "-" }

       dar_manager -h

       dar_manager -V

DESCRIPTION

       dar_manager  is part of the Disk Archive suite. Its purpose is to simplify the restoration
       of a set of files present in many backup, full or differential, eventually composed  of  a
       set  of  binary delta patches. This is achieved by gathering the catalogue of each archive
       (this has to be done once). Then, at any time you just have to give the relative  path  to
       the  files  you  want  to  restore,  dar_manager will call dar with the proper options and
       restore the last version of each file (or the last version before given date).  Note  that
       dar_manager  is  especially  interesting when you have removed some files by accident some
       time ago and wish to recover them from a set of full and differential backups. It is  thus
       not  really  adapted/efficient  to restore the state a full system had at a given time, in
       particular when some files have to be removed. For that you would better use dar  directly
       with  the  corresponding archive(s) up to the date for which you wish to restore the state
       of your Unix system.

       You can restore any file by  hand  without  dar_manager  ,  but  if  you  have  a  lot  of
       differential backups, you may spend a long time to find the archive that contains the last
       version of your files.  dar_manager simplify  the  process  by  looking  in  its  internal
       database, built from archive "catalogues" (= table of contents) it has been fed with.

COMMANDS

       -C, --create [<path>/]<database>
                           creates  an empty database that will collect information about several
                           archives. The <database> is a filename that is required for -B option.
                           To destroy a <database> just remove the file.

       -B, --base [<path>/]<database>
                           specify  the  database  to  read  or  modify. The <database> file must
                           exist, and have a database structure (see -C option).

       -i, --interactive   use a keyboard interactive text menu to do  operations  on  the  given
                           database. So you may avoid reading the other options described in this
                           manual page, if you wish, and just use  the  interactive  option.  You
                           will  however  always have to create an empty database (-C option) and
                           restore files manually (-r option).

       -A, --add [<path>/]<basename> [ [<path>/]<archive_basename>]
                           add an archive to the database. An isolated catalogue can also be used
                           only  if  it  has  been  produced by dar version 1.2.0 or above. Why ?
                           Because, an isolated catalogue produced by older version  will  always
                           tell that no files are saved in the archive of reference, in that case
                           the solution is to provide the archive itself as argument. An optional
                           second argument is the basename of the archive if it is different from
                           the first argument (need for extraction of  files).  For  example  you
                           could have an isolated catalogue in first argument and the basename of
                           the original archive (where is stored the data) as second argument. By
                           default,

       -9, --min-digits <num>
                           the slice number zeroed padding to use to get the slices filename (for
                           more details see dar man page at this same  option)  dar_manager  will
                           look  for  an  archive of reference in the command line used to create
                           each archive, but in some cases, it may be necessary  to  specify  the
                           archive name (for example if you've changed its name).

       -l, --list          displays  the information about the archives compiled in the database.
                           In particular, a number is given to each archive, which is required to
                           some  other option to design a particular archive within the database.
                           Nothing avoids you to feed the database with several  archive  of  the
                           same  basename  ! You will just have to guess which one is asked under
                           this name. :-)

       -D, --delete <number>[-<number>]
                           removes an archive (or a range of  archive)  from  the  database.  The
                           number of the archive (or the min and max number or the archive range)
                           is correspond to those given by the -l option. Note that  all  archive
                           number  greater  than  the  one(s) to be delete will be decremented to
                           keep continuous numbering of the archive inside  the  database.  If  a
                           single  number  is  given  (not  a  range),  it may be also a negative
                           number, by which it means counting from the end. For example, -1 means
                           the last archive of the base, -2 the penultimate, etc.

       -b, --basename <number> <new_archive_basename>
                           this  option  allows  you  to  rename  the archive basename (used when
                           restoring files from it). Here too, the number may be also a  negative
                           number.

       -p, --path <number> <path>
                           this option allows you to change the location of a given archive (used
                           when restoring files from it). Here too, a negative number is allowed.

       -o, --options [list of option to pass to dar]
                           Specify the option to use when  calling  dar.  Each  call  erases  the
                           previous  setting.  Possible  dar  options  are all the available ones
                           except "-x"  and simple arguments (the [list of path]) which  will  be
                           added by dar_manager itself.

       -d, --dar [<path>]  Set  the  path  to dar. If no argument is given, dar is expected to be
                           located in the PATH

       -r, --restore [list of files or directories to restore]
                           dar_manager will restore all (an only) the given files or directories,
                           in their latest recorded status, or before the date give thanks to the
                           -e option. If a directory is given all subfiles and subdirectories are
                           restored  recursively  in  it. You can filter out some files from this
                           recursion thanks to dar usual filtering option (see dar man page)  you
                           can  provide  beside  -r  using the -e option (see below). Dar_manager
                           lead dar to remove any file, if  a  file  is  stored  as  having  been
                           removed  at date requested for restoration, it is simply not restored.
                           Thus if you restore in an empty directory you will get all  the  files
                           and  directories you provided to dar_manager in the state they have at
                           the date you asked. File that did not existed at that time will not be
                           restored.  However  you can restore over an existing installation, dar
                           will then warn you before overwriting files (see -w and -n options for
                           dar) but will still not remove files that were recorded removed from a
                           previous archive of  reference.   Note  that  files  listed  after  -r
                           option,  must never have an absolute path. They will be restored under
                           the directory specified with -R option of dar (passed to dar using  -o
                           or -e options), or by default, under the current directory.

       -w, --when <date>   alters  the  -r  option behavior: still restores the files in the most
                           recent version available but only before the given date  (versions  of
                           more  recent dates are ignored). The <date> must respect the following
                           format  [  [  [year/]month/]day-]hour:minute[:second].   For   example
                           "22:10"  for  10  PM  past 10 or the current day,  "7-22:10" for 10 PM
                           past 10 the 7th of the current month,  "3/07-22:10"  for  the  7th  of
                           march  at 22:10 of the current year, "2002/03/31-14:00:00" the date of
                           the first dar's release ;-). The given date must be in  the  past,  of
                           course,  and  is compared to the "last modification" date of the saved
                           files and not to the date at which archives have been done. Thus if  a
                           file  has  been changed long ago but saved in a recent (full) archive,
                           it will be elected for restoration  even  for  dates  older  than  the
                           creation  of the archive. In the other way, a file saved long time ago
                           with a mtime that was set to a date in the future will not be  elected
                           for restoration when giving the date at which was done the archive.

              Note  that  the provided date is relative to the system timezone which is overriden
              if the TZ environement variable is set (see tzselect(1) for more details)

       -e, --extra <options>
                           pass some more options to dar. While the -o  options  takes  all  that
                           follows on the command line as argument to pass to dar and write these
                           in the database, the -e option does not alter  the  database  and  has
                           only one argument. In other words, if you need to pass several options
                           to dar through the use of the  -e  option,  you  need  to  use  quotes
                           (simple  quotes  '  or  double  quotes  ")  to  enclose these options.
                           Example:

                     dar_manager -B database.dmd -e "-w -v -p -b -r -H 1" -r some/files

              while using -o option you must not use quotes:

                     dar_manager -B database.dmd -o -w -v -p -b -r -H 1

       -u, --used <number> list the files that the given archive owns as last version  available.
                           Thus  when  no  file is listed, the given archive is no more useful in
                           database, and can be removed safely (-D option). If <number> is  zero,
                           all  available  file  are  listed,  the  status provided for each file
                           present in the database is the most recent status. A  negative  number
                           is allowed for this option (see -D option for details).

       -f, --file <file>   displays  in  which  archive the given file is saved, and what are the
                           modification date (mtime) and change date (ctime).

       -s, --stats         show the number of  most  recent  files  by  archive.  This  helps  to
                           determine which archive can be safely removed from the database.

       -m, --move <number> <number>
                           changes the order of archives in the database. The first number is the
                           number of the archive to move, while the second is the place where  it
                           must be shifted to.

                           Archive  order  is important: An old archive must have a smaller index
                           than a recent archive. If you add archive to a database in  the  order
                           they  have  been created all should be fine. Else if a file has a more
                           recent version in an archive which index is smaller, a warning will be
                           issued  (unless  -ai option is used). This can occur if by mistake you
                           added an archive to the database in the wrong order (old archive added
                           after  a recent one), in that case simply using the -m option will let
                           you fix this mistake. If instead the problem is relative to  a  single
                           file (or a small set of file), you should wonder why this file has its
                           modification date altered in a way that it pretends to be  older  than
                           its really is. Checking for the signs of a rootkit may be a good idea.

       -c, --check         check  the  database  consistency,  in particular the date ordering is
                           verified and warning are issued  for  each  file  having  more  recent
                           version  located  in  an  archive  with  a  smaller  index  inside the
                           database. -ai option makes -c option useless.

       -N, --ignore-options-in-base
                           Do not use the  options  stored  in  database  when  calling  dar  for
                           restoration.  This  option  is  only useful while restoring files from
                           dar_manager, either directly (-r option) or using  a  batch  file  (-@
                           option, see below).

       -k, --ignore-when-removed
                           By  default,  dar_manager  does  not ask dar to restore file that have
                           been removed at the requested date (or in the latest state available).
                           This  is useful for example to restore a directory in the state it has
                           at a given date (only files that existed at that time  are  restored).
                           However  when  you  want  to restore a file that has been destroyed by
                           accident, you need to use -k option so you don't have to determine  at
                           which  date  that  file  existed  to  be be able to ask dar_manager to
                           restore that file in the state it  had  before  that  date.  In  other
                           words,  -k  option gives a behavior of dar_manager backward compatible
                           with dar_manager released beside version 2.3.x of dar.

       -ai, --alter=ignore-order
                           avoid dar_manager to issue a warning for each  file  not  following  a
                           chronological  order  of  modification date when the archive number in
                           the database is growing.

       -@, --batch <filename>
                           allows  you  to  do  several  operations  on  a  given  database.  All
                           operations  are  defined  in  the provided <filename> and refer to the
                           same database as defined by the -B switch on command line. This  batch
                           file,  must thus not contain neither -B, -C, -i or -ai option (-ai are
                           global to the batch operation). The batch file expected layout is  one
                           command  per line, thus several arguments (like -l -v for example) may
                           take place on a given line of the  file  (-v  can  be  found  both  on
                           command  line  for  verbose output about the batch operation steps, as
                           well as inside the batch file  for  verbose  output  of  a  particular
                           batched  command).  Arguments  are  separated by spaces or tabs, other
                           characters are passed as-is. In consequence, you should only  need  to
                           use  quotes (using " or ') if you intend to use an argument containing
                           space. Last, comments may be placed on any line beginning  by  a  hash
                           character (#).

       -z, --compression <algo>[:<level>]
                           Available  creating  or  modifying a database content (-C, -A, -D, -m,
                           -i, -L options), this option let you set the compression algorithm and
                           eventually  the compression level to use when the database is wrote to
                           file. By default gzip:9  is  use,  but  you  can  use  "none"  for  no
                           compression,  "bzip2", "xz" and "lzo" and other compression algorithms
                           (see -z option in dar's man page for an up to date list  of  available
                           algorithms).  Note: this option is only needed if you want to *change*
                           the compression algorithm or level. Once defined, either  at  database
                           creation  time using -C option, or modified afterward, the compression
                           scheme is stored in the database header  and  used  for  writing  down
                           database back to file.

       -Q                  Do not display any message on stderr when not launched from a terminal
                           (for example when launched from an at job or  crontab).  Remains  that
                           any  question to the user will be assumed a 'no' answer, which most of
                           the time will abort the program.

       -v, --verbose       displays additional information about what it is doing.

       -h, --help          display help usage

       -V, --version       display software version

EXIT CODES

       dar_manager exits with the following code:

       0         Operation successful.

       1         see dar manual page for signification

       2         see dar manual page for signification

       3         see dar manual page for signification

       5         see dar manual page for signification

       7         see dar manual page for signification

       8         see dar manual page for signification

       11 and above
                 dar
                  called from dar_manager has exited with non zero status. Subtract  10  to  this
                 exit code to get dar's exit code.

SIGNALS

       dar_manager  acts  like  dar  (see  dar man page for list of signals), upon certain signal
       reception dar aborts cleanly

SEE ALSO

       dar(1), dar_xform(1), dar_slave(1), dar_cp(1), dar_split(1)

LIMITATIONS

       at most 65534 archives can be compiled in a given database, which  should  be  enough  for
       most  users.  Dar_manager  does  not support encrypted archives for now and archive cannot
       neither be encrypted. See the FAQ for a workaround.

KNOWN BUGS

       http://sourceforge.net/p/dar/bugs/

AUTHOR

       http://dar.linux.free.fr/
       Denis Corbin
       France
       Europe