AFIO(1) UNIX System V AFIO(1)
NAME
afio - manipulate archives and files
SYNOPSIS
afio -o [ options ] archive
afio -t [ options ] archive
afio -i [ options ] archive
afio -p [ options ] directory [ ... ]
DESCRIPTION
Afio manipulates groups of files, copying them within the (collective)
filesystem or between the filesystem and an afio archive. Note that afio
archives are portable, as they contain only ASCII-formatted header
information. They are also compatible with ASCII cpio(1) archives (ala
cpio -c).
With -o, reads pathnames from the standard input and writes an archive.
With -t, reads an archive and writes a table-of-contents to the standard
output.
With -i, installs the contents of an archive relative to the working
directory.
With -p, reads pathnames from the standard input and copies the files to
each directory.
Creates missing directories as necessary, with permissions to match their
parents.
Generates sparse filesystem blocks (with lseek(2)) when possible.
Supports multi-volume archives during interactive operation (i.e., when
/dev/tty is accessible and SIGINT is not being ignored).
Options:
-b size Read or write size-character archive blocks. Suffices of b,
k and m denote multiples of 512, 1024 and 1048576,
respectively. Defaults to 5120 for compatibility with
cpio(1).
-c count Buffer count archive blocks between I/O operations. A large
count is recommended with streaming magnetic tape drives.
-d Don't create missing directories.
-e bound Pad the archive to a multiple of bound characters.
Recognizes the same suffices as -s. Defaults to 1x (the -b
block size) for compatibility with cpio(1).
10/89 Page 1
AFIO(1) UNIX System V AFIO(1)
-f Spawn a child process to actually write to the archive;
provides a clumsy form of double-buffering. Requires -s for
multi-volume archive support.
-g Change to input file directories. Avoids quadratic
filesystem behavior with long similar pathnames. Requires
all absolute pathnames, including those for the -o archive
and the -p directories.
-h Follow symbolic links, treating them as ordinary files and
directories.
-j Don't generate sparse filesystem blocks.
-k Skip corrupt data at the beginning of an archive (rather
than complaining about unrecognizable input).
-l With -o, write file contents with each hard link.
With -t, report hard links.
With -p, attempt to link files rather than copying them.
-m Mark output files with a common current timestamp (rather
than with input file modification times).
-n Protect newer existing files (comparing file modification
times).
-s limit Restrict each portion of a multi-volume archive to limit
characters. Recognizes the same suffices as -b. Also, the
suffix x denotes a multiple of the -b block size (and must
follow any -b specification). Useful with finite-length
devices which do not return short counts at end of media
(sigh); output to magnetic tape typically falls into this
category.
-u Report files with unseen links.
-v Verbose. Report pathnames as they are processed. With -t,
gives an ls -l style report (including link information).
-x Retain file ownership and setuid/setgid permissions. This
is the default for the super-user; he may use -X to override
it.
-y prefix Restrict archive processing to names beginning with prefix.
Specify once for each prefix to be recognized. Use -Y to
supply prefixes which are not to be processed.
Page 2 10/89
AFIO(1) UNIX System V AFIO(1)
-z Print execution statistics. This is meant for human
consumption; use by other programs is officially
discouraged.
-A Do not turn absolute paths into relative paths. That is don't
remove the leading slash.
-F This is a floppy disk, -s is required. Uses shared memory if
compiled in otherwise mallocs as needed (a 3b1 will not be able to
malloc the needed memory w/o shared memory), afio assumes either
way you can malloc/shmalloc a chunck of memory the size of one
disk. Examples: 795k: 3.5" (720k drive), 316k (360k drive)
At the end of each disk this message occurs:
Ready for disk [#] on [output] (remove the disk when the light goes out)
Type "go" (or "GO") when ready to proceed (or "quit" to abort):
-K Verify the output against what is in the memory copy of the disk
(-F required). If the writing or verifying fails the following
menu pops up (the hidden option "quit" will also exit from the
backup at this point).
[Writing/Verify] of disk [disk #] has FAILED (try option #3 first ])!
Enter 1 to RETRY this disk
Enter 2 to REFORMAT this disk
Enter 3 to REFORMAT AND THEN RETRY this disk if the format works
-L Logfilepath
Specify the name of the file to log errors and the finial totals
to.
-R Disk format command string
This is the command that is run when you enter 2 to reformat the
disk. The default (char *formatcmd = "sh /u/store/format.sh") can
be changed to a given system's default.
-Z Compress the files on the way out, in, and passing without links
(valid w/ or w/o -F or -K), requires compress and uncompress to be
in your path.
Special-case archive names:
o Specify - to read or write the standard input or output,
respectively. This disables multi-volume archive handling.
o Prefix a command string to be executed with an exclamation mark
(!). The command is executed once for each archive volume, with
its standard input or output piped to afio. It is expected to
produce a zero exit code when all is well.
o Use system:file to access an archive in file on system. This is
really just a special case of pipelining. It requires a 4.2BSD-
style remote shell (rsh(1C)) and a remote copy of afio.
10/89 Page 3
AFIO(1) UNIX System V AFIO(1)
o Anything else specifies a local file or device. An output file
will be created if it does not already exist.
Recognizes obsolete binary cpio(1) archives (including those from
machines with reversed byte order), but cannot write them.
Recovers from archive corruption by searching for a valid magic number.
This is rather simplistic, but, much like a disassembler, almost always
works.
Optimizes pathnames with respect to the current and parent directories.
For example, ./src/sh/../misc/afio.c becomes src/misc/afio.c.
EXAMPLE
AT&T 3b1 (all one line) find /u/bstore -print | \
afio -ovzFZK -L/u/store/BackupLog \ -R'/etc/iv -i /dev/rfp020
/usr/lib/iv/FDnl' -s$DISKSIZE /dev/rfp021
BUGS
There are too many options.
Restricts pathnames to 1023 characters and 255 meaningful elements.
There is no sequence information within multi-volume archives. Input
sequence errors generally masquerade as data corruption. A solution
would probably be mutually exclusive with cpio(1) compatibility.
Degenerate uses of symbolic links are mangled by pathname optimization.
For example, assuming that "usr.src" is a symbolic link to "/usr/src",
the pathname "usr.src/../bin/cu" is mis-optimized into "bin/cu" (rather
than "/usr/bin/cu").
SEE ALSO
cpio(1), find(1), tar(1), tp(1), compress(1).
AUTHOR
Mark Brukhartz
..!ihnp4!laidbak!mdb
Jeff Buhrt (floppy/compression extensions)
uunet!sawmill!prslnk!buhrt
Page 4 10/89