- It requires python >= 2.4, a C compiler, and an installed git version >=
1.5.3.1.
- - It currently only works on Linux, MacOS X >= 10.4, or Windows (with
- Cygwin). Patches to support other platforms are welcome.
+ - It currently only works on Linux, MacOS X >= 10.4,
+ NetBSD, Solaris, or Windows (with Cygwin). Patches to support
+ other platforms are welcome.
Getting started
----------------
+===============
+
+
+From source
+-----------
- Check out the bup source code using git:
- Install the needed python libraries (including the development
libraries). On Debian or Ubuntu, this is usually:
apt-get install python2.6-dev python-fuse
+ apt-get install python-pyxattr python-pylibacl
Substitute python2.5-dev or python2.4-dev if you have an older system.
+
+ Or on newer Debian/Ubuntu versions, you can try this:
+
+ apt-get build-dep bup
- Build the python module and symlinks:
(The tests should pass. If they don't pass for you, stop here and send
me an email.)
-
+
+
+From binary packages
+--------------------
+
+Binary packages of bup are known to be built for the following OSes:
+
+ - Debian:
+ http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&keywords=bup
+ - Ubuntu:
+ http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?searchon=names&keywords=bup
+ - pkgsrc (NetBSD, Dragonfly, and others)
+ http://pkgsrc.se/sysutils/bup
+ http://cvsweb.netbsd.org/bsdweb.cgi/pkgsrc/sysutils/bup/
+
+
+Using bup
+---------
+
- Try making a local backup as a tar file:
tar -cvf - /etc | bup split -n local-etc -vv
That's all there is to it!
+Notes on FreeBSD
+----------------
+
+- FreeBSD's default 'make' command doesn't like bup's Makefile. In order to
+ compile the code, run tests and install bup, you need to install GNU Make
+ from the port named 'gmake' and use its executable instead in the commands
+ seen above. (i.e. 'gmake test' runs bup's test suite)
+
+- Python's development headers are automatically installed with the 'python'
+ port so there's no need to install them separately.
+
+- To use the 'bup fuse' command, you need to install the fuse kernel module
+ from the 'fusefs-kmod' port in the 'sysutils' section and the libraries from
+ the port named 'py-fusefs' in the 'devel' section.
+
+- The 'par2' command can be found in the port named 'par2cmdline'.
+
+- In order to compile the documentation, you need pandoc which can be found in
+ the port named 'hs-pandoc' in the 'textproc' section.
+
+
+Notes on NetBSD/pkgsrc
+----------------------
+
+ - See pkgsrc/sysutils/bup, which should be the most recent stable
+ release and includes man pages. It also has a reasonable set of
+ dependencies (git, par2, py-fuse-bindings).
+
+ - The "fuse-python" package referred to is hard to locate, and is a
+ separate tarball for the python language binding distributed by the
+ fuse project on sourceforge. It is available as
+ pkgsrc/filesystems/py-fuse-bindings and on NetBSD 5, "bup fuse"
+ works with it.
+
+ - "bup fuse" presents every directory/file as inode 0. The directory
+ traversal code ("fts") in NetBSD's libc will interpret this as a
+ cycle and error out, so "ls -R" and "find" will not work.
+
+ - It is not clear if extended attribute and POSIX acl support does
+ anything useful.
+
+
How it works
-------------
+============
Basic storage:
Help with any of these problems, or others, is very welcome. Join the
mailing list (see below) if you'd like to help.
- - 'bup save' and 'bup restore' don't know about file metadata.
+ - 'bup save' and 'bup restore' have immature metadata support.
- That means we aren't saving file attributes, mtimes, ownership, hard
- links, MacOS resource forks, etc. Clearly this needs to be improved.
+ On the plus side, they actually do have support now, but it's new,
+ and not remotely as well tested as tar/rsync/whatever's. If you'd
+ like to help test, please do; something like 'rsync -niaHAX src/
+ restore/' may be useful on that front.
+
+ In addition, at the moment, if any strip or graft-style options
+ are specified to 'bup save', then no metadata will be written for
+ the root directory. That's obviously less than ideal.
- 'bup index' is slower than it should be.
Actually, that's not stupid, but you might consider it a limitation.
There are a bunch of Linux GUI backup programs; someday I expect someone
will adapt one of them to use bup.
+
+
+More Documentation
+------------------
+
+bup has an extensive set of man pages. Try using 'bup help' to get
+started, or use 'bup help SUBCOMMAND' for any bup subcommand (like split,
+join, index, save, etc.) to get details on that command.
+
+For further technical details, please see ./DESIGN.
How you can help
-----------------
+================
bup is a work in progress and there are many ways it can still be improved.
If you'd like to contribute patches, ideas, or bug reports, please join the
projects / bup.git / blobdiff