3.3 Compatibility

Although KBACKUP adds lots of functionality, its archives are still readable by afio(1) or tar(1) , depending on which one was used to create it. To do so, on tapes, KBACKUP writes several files per archive: an archive header containing information about the archive type, compression method, date, ..., the table of contents (gzip(1) -compressed) and the actual archive file itself (If using sequence information for the MULTIBUF program, it creates another two (short one-block) files.). To restore multivolume archives, all you need is the archive handler (afio(1) or tar(1) ) and MULTIBUF , which is included in ANSI-C source code an should easily be compiled on any system.

If you do not want to use MULTIBUF , you can switch it off and write plain tar(1) or afio(1) archives.

Unfortunately, the many new features, especially the secure multivolume support, required some changes to the way archives get written to the tape. However, KBACKUP is able to autodetect whether MULTIBUF has been used in archive creation and therefore is still capable or reading archives that have been created by earlier versions of KBACKUP . It is currently not possible to restore multivolume archives that have been created with older versions of KBACKUP . As they were somehow unreliable anyway, better use a version newer than 1.2 to make new backups.

To restore old multivolume archives, created with version 1.0 or 1.1, you have to use tar(1) or afio(1) manually.

Restoring any archive manually (optionally using MULTIBUF ) is always possible, anyway.