Welcome to Compatible Backup (cbkp)
===================================

The main purpose of this program is to facilitate the creation 
of archives and backups using more or less "standard" archivers
and to provide tools for fast emergency recovery.

So, your archive will be readable not only by this program
but also by the program selected by you as archiver (is compatible with
that archiver, of course, I've used it :).

There is only one single difference between using a CLI archiver like tar
and this program. CBKP will add at the beginning of the archive
a supplemental file called "0000_catalog.txt" (0000 is important, to ensure
that the catalog resides at the begining of the archive). This file contains
the list with all files in archive (on incremental tar backups the catalog
is not created, it would be useless).

If you are manipulating archives only trough cbkp then you will never see
this file, it's completely transparent.
However, if you will take the archive created with CBKP and will unarchive
it using directly the archiver then you will see it.

Cbkp is just a tiny script using "standard" Unix tools so it should work
without problems (well, maybe dialog isn't so "standard").

_____________________________________________________________________
WARNING!

Before using cbkp for the first time make a test, preferably 
multivolume (my configuration Slackware 3.0  + Conner420R floppy tape).
_____________________________________________________________________

Only floppy tapes, floppy disks (3.5" HD) and files are supported as devices
(that's all I have).
If you have other devices you would like to add and you are keen
to spend little spare time to make some tests for me I'll add more
(contact me on: physrmh@phys.canterbury.ac.nz).
I will _not_ add any other device without feedback (that will be just calling
for trouble).

I provided 4 configurations:

 - DEFAULT tar archive on file /tmp/archive.tar
   just a default

 - FD144VM tar archive on /dev/fd0H1440 (floppy disk 3.5" HD), multivolume
   for small backups

 - FT120V  tar archive on /dev/nrft0 (floppy tape 120 Mb)
   for large backups

 - FT200VM tar archive on /dev/nrft0 (floppy tape 200 Mb), multivolume
   for full backups

Of course, it's a trivial task to make your own but at this time you have to
be root to create a new one. 
