backup Invalid Device

[Juanito]

A little baffled by this:

Code: [Select]

$ cat /opt/.tce_dir
/mnt/sdb4/tce
$ cat /opt/.backup_device
/mnt/sdb4/tce
$ filetool.sh -b
Invalid device
Press enter to continue:
..but this works:

Code: [Select]

$ sudo busybox tar -C / -T /opt/.filetool.lst -X /opt/.xfiletool.lst  -czf /mnt/sdb4/tce/mydata.tgz

[roberts]

Did you manually edit the contents of .backup_device, as it is not normally populated like that.
Typically it would be:
sdb4/tce

[Juanito]

I absolutely don't recall editing the file, but having modified it as you say it's working now.

I'm getting old 

[roberts]

Well /mnt is not a device but a mount point directory whereas /dev is a device.
To avoid confusion and shorten the boot options I drop that lead in.

[maro]

[rant]
All this highlights one of my long-standing (personal) "aestetical" issues with those two files: Starting with the principle that settings that have similar function should have also similarly named setting files and furthermore similar content, I personally would prefer if '/opt/.backup_device' (with a content like 'hda1/tce') would rather be '/opt/.backup_file' (with a content like '/mnt/hda1/tce/mydata.tgz').

This way (at least IMHO) the information does not require further processing to be actually useful (e.g. ls -l $(cat /opt/.backup_file)). I accept that nothing is "seriously broken" in the current state, but it requires (again IMHO) more "brain gymnastics" to follow the relevant scripts.

And whilst I'm already on a roll: Why do those files have to be hidden? And what's the point of them being in '/opt' which is IMHO an "obvious violation" of the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard
[/rant]