open files

[Jason M. Felice]

On Fri, Feb 20, 2004 at 08:16:46AM -0800, Tarun Karra wrote:
> hi,
>  
> 1) yes iam talking about the suggested "braindamaged windows OS(2000)". Iam trying to mount the drive from windows to linux and do a local rsync between mounted folder and a local folder. 
> 2) What happens when my mounted folder contains a "OPEN FILE" Does rsync ignore it or does rysnc crash.
> 3) Also what additonal considerations should we take when we are backing up from windows to a linux machine.
>  
> jason::
> Win32 backup semantics : what are these?????

Like anything else in Windows, it's a kludge ontop of a kludge ontop of
another kludge in order to fix the original kludge.  Since Windows
programs can't rely on being able to open files that other programs have
open, there would be no way to write a useful tape backup program.  To
fix, they added "backup semantics".  If your process has permission to
do so, it can request backup semantics which will allow it to open files
which are already open.  

Of course it's this sort of thinking which is the reason why the Windows
API to open a stupid file has seven parameters and a buttload of flags
and pointers to structures which no longer work in recent versions of
Windows.  </rant>

> Jim::
> >I don't currently know of any good way to test which files are only 
> write-locked >during use and which files are completely locked during use 
> other than by just trying >a copy operation and seeing if it works.
> There is a utility called filemon at www.sysinternals.com if you wanna 
> see all the openfiles and all the process that have locks on a file.
>  
> There is a openfile manager form www.stbernard.com that when installed on 
> windows machine allowes you to backup the open files. But its costly and i 
> wanted to know if there is any opensource alternative out there, if not 
> does any one have insight into how it works ? wouldnt it be good to have 
> rysnc backup open files too, now that we cannot avoid using shit (w*n***s).

The patch I'm working on will do this.  I'm promising people it'll be
done by Monday (I hit a little roadblock in getting Cygwin to cooperate,
hopefully I'll still be able to finish by then).  The openfile manager most
definitely uses the backup semantics flag if it can back up open files.

-- 
 Jason M. Felice
 Cronosys, LLC <http://www.cronosys.com/>
 216.221.4600 x302