Hi all,

I'm sorting out my backups on my Amiga X5000, running OS 4.1FE. I'm using OnyxSoft BackUp to clone my volumes to an internal Backups drive. But I'd also like to create single-file archives of my partitions so they can also be stored on a separate machine or uploaded offsite.

My requirements are that it must correctly backup AmigaDOS attributes such as script/execute bits and so on, and that it must be able to handle large volumes as my largest partition is around 40GB in size and has a lot of directories.

I've tried LHA, but this a.) takes an incredibly long while to start processing the archive, and b.) doesn't seem to be able to create archives larger than 2GB in size.

What's the current preferred solution for making backup archives of large volumes on AmigaOS 4.x ? For example, would I have better luck with LZX, or can ZIP handle AmigaDOS attributes ?

Thanks!

-Mark

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@mdr

Well AmigaOS1.x/3.1/3.5/3.9 did not have large file support, all tools made for the classic AmigaOS originally have limit of 2Gbytes files, It's unlikely they be upgraded to support the files over 2Gbytes.

Really it has not been problem until now really, my guess is that you can back up your files using AmiDVD, then I guess you compress the ISO image.

I was going to suggest TAR.GZ, but I'm not sure if preserves all protection flags, and to be actually I'm not sure if AmiDVD will preserve all protection flags.

On the other hand, it won't be too hard to create something similar to TAR for Amiga to preserve all attributes, then you can use any compression tool you like.

I suggest you experiment with newer compression tools like 7zip, gunzip2 and so on. If you find a tool that will preserve all attributes, please post your findings.

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@NutsAboutAmiga

Hi, Thanks for the tips! I've investigated AmiDVD, and it looks like it will do the job, attributes seem to be preserved as well. I'm currently writing a blog post about backups, so I'll finish that off and report back here when I've had more time to test things.

By the way, I noticed in your signature that you wrote AmigaInputAnywhere - thanks for this great tool! It's really helped when playing classic games on my X5000. I covered it here (under the "joystick tweaks" section): http://www.markround.com/blog/2018/10/30/classic-amiga-emulation-on-the-x5000 :)

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My hardware: X5000 running OS4.1; A1200 030@50Mhz,16MB,OS 3.9/KS 3.1.4

I just finished a (lengthy!) blog post on backing up my X5000, and have covered the use of AmiDVD to make archives as well:

http://www.markround.com/blog/2019/01/02/backups-on-the-amiga-x5000/

Many thanks again for the helpful tip, and happy 2019

Last edited by mdr on 02-Jan-2019 at 07:05 PM.

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@mdr

Thankyou Mark :)

@mdr

As an alternative to finding a dedicated Amiga backup program that likely doesn't exist would be to image the partition. Then use any modern utility to compress it. Of course to remount the image it must be uncompressed so not the best.

AmiDVD looks useful if it can create an image from all the files. Of course then it would be good to compress it.

Being able to create a compressed image with a compressed filesystem would be useful that could still be mounted.

Thought by now we'd have a few native backup programs.

Reading your blog, nice one, I see you found the "easy" way of setting an AmigaOS boot menu. The os4_bootdevice variable has been around for a while and I only found out about it recently. Or what it does.

Before then you would have to add a line to the Kicklayout called BootDevice and create an associated file with the boot device. Kind of fiddly. Done it a lot.

But it's a lot easier than on the first AmigaOne model. The SLB boot loader could only read one Kicklayout for the entire disk. So you had to merge all Kicklayouts into one master file, copy all Kickstart files to a master boot partition, then soft link all the Kickstart files to each volume. And that's just a simplification. There were a few steps involved and risking a booting system. A lot of manual work!

I see you like SFS2. For my Workbench I use SFS1. Since I see no need for a 64-bit Workbench. And as you found out SFS1 has recovery tools.

Last edited by Hypex on 03-Jan-2019 at 07:31 AM.

@mdr

Please note that compressing is pointless on JPEG and MPEG material, such as pictures and videos, and other already compressed archives.

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@Hypex

Quote:

that likely doesn't exist would be to image the partition.

There is problem with that, way did not suggest it, how is the filesystem stored, as we do not know how the filesystem is stored and organized, we have to write it back to same block as it was read from. I believe a Fast Filesystem uses absolute block numbers, so the partition can't be moved, if the filesystem used relative block numbers starting from the partition start block, it be lot safer, and it be possible to move partitions.

beyond this the file system blocks will contain addition data, that file does not, like CRC, block number, next block number and so on, in addition you have copy the empty blocks, so the raw disk image of partition will be larger.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 05-Jan-2019 at 01:44 PM.

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@mdr

Yes input joypad was problem in the start, lots of stuff was ported over without, any attempt to add support for AmigaOS features, this made some games hard to play, or not so fun to play, this is way made the tool, I'm happy you like it.

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@NutsAboutAmiga

Quote:

There is problem with that, way did not suggest it, how is the filesystem stored, as we do not know how the filesystem is stored and organized, we have to write it back to same block as it was read from.

What I was thinking is along the lines of a HDD image that could be mounted. DiskImage would be possible to mount it. But if it could detect the filesystem easily is another matter. Best would be if could determine this from the image without manual setup. However, this way allows the image to be in any Amiga filesystem format, it is just mounted like a normal partition. Provided it can work transparently as a read only backup image.

By imaging the entire volume would include redundant or empty data blocks. Even though an archive would contain file data with overhead. In this case the image takes up exactly as much space as the partition space reserved for it. So best as a compressed image. And obviously, that is extra overhead.

Systems like DMS provided a good base for a compressed filesystem.

@Hypex

Quote:

Hypex wrote: What I was thinking is along the lines of a HDD image that could be mounted. DiskImage would be possible to mount it. But if it could detect the filesystem easily is another matter. Best would be if could determine this from the image without manual setup. However, this way allows the image to be in any Amiga filesystem format, it is just mounted like a normal partition. Provided it can work transparently as a read only backup image. By imaging the entire volume would include redundant or empty data blocks. Even though an archive would contain file data with overhead. In this case the image takes up exactly as much space as the partition space reserved for it. So best as a compressed image. And obviously, that is extra overhead. Systems like DMS provided a good base for a compressed filesystem.

Don't we come back to the fact, that ISO image is quite good option for that? It doesn't waste space by archiving empty space, it can be mounted any time as read-only backup, and preserves pretty much everything needed.

Full HDD images would have the advantage being able to be writable too. I, for example, use to mount my OS4 setup HDD image file over SMBFS with the FileImgCtrl program on MorphOS to add new stuff to my emulated OS4 setup on a remote machine that way... but generally if you don't want a writable backup, ISO images are fine options.

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@mdr

For my Vamped Amiga's i use Win32 Disk imager to backup my 32 GB CF drives.
This works perfect for me, only downside is you have to get HDD/CF etc out of your Amiga and plug it to a PC to backup or restore.

Last edited by Mr-Z on 05-Jan-2019 at 12:13 PM.

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@jPV

Quote:

Don't we come back to the fact, that ISO image is quite good option for that? It doesn't waste space by archiving empty space, it can be mounted any time as read-only backup, and preserves pretty much everything needed.

Yes we did. I was just going into more detail of what I was thinking. However, are we aware of any limits when using AmiDVD for this? ISO is an old format. Can it support 256 length file names and unlimted directory depth for example? UDF should be used if it can build it.

OS4 can read an ISO9660 formatted Bluray disc. Don't know if it can write it. Might need FryingPan for that.

Quote:

Full HDD images would have the advantage being able to be writable too. I, for example, use to mount my OS4 setup HDD image file over SMBFS with the FileImgCtrl program on MorphOS to add new stuff to my emulated OS4 setup on a remote machine that way... but generally if you don't want a writable backup, ISO images are fine options.

That's an interesting assortment you put together there. So, with SMBFS in the middle, do you lose those elusive protection bits.

On OS4 you can use cso2iso to compress an ISO image; no need to uncompress if you want to read the files within. DiskImage handles that.

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@Hypex

Quote:

Hypex wrote: @jPV Quote: Full HDD images would have the advantage being able to be writable too. I, for example, use to mount my OS4 setup HDD image file over SMBFS with the FileImgCtrl program on MorphOS to add new stuff to my emulated OS4 setup on a remote machine that way... but generally if you don't want a writable backup, ISO images are fine options. That's an interesting assortment you put together there. So, with SMBFS in the middle, do you lose those elusive protection bits.

No, files in an SMBFS share are handled just like files on a local drive. It's the same if I mount an HDD image from a local or remote drive, OS just sees the image file that it handles on the filesystem level, and nothing gets "extracted" in the middle.

And when I mount a HDD image with FileImgCtrl, it appears as a standard drive on MorphOS, so the OS itself doesn't know if it's handling a real partition or mounted partition and I can read and write, and do everything I'm supposed to be able to do on an Amiga compatible filesystem.

I guess the same can be done with DiskImage or similar, and SMBFS, under AmigaOS too. At least if you keep filesize limits in your mind. I don't remember if Amiga version of SMBFS has 64bit support or not (MorphOS version does have), but I guess images under 2GB should be fine in any case, or maybe 4GB(?), and bigger ones if the 64bit support is there.

BTW. little off-topic for curiosity, I also run the emulated OS4 setup over RDesktop on MorphOS, so I have OS4 running on MorphOS and don't have to touch the PC at all (literally) :P

Last edited by jPV on 13-Jan-2019 at 10:06 AM.

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@jPV

Quote:

No, files in an SMBFS share are handled just like files on a local drive. It's the same if I mount an HDD image from a local or remote drive, OS just sees the image file that it handles on the filesystem level, and nothing gets "extracted" in the middle.

That's pretty good. I didn't know that was possible with a network filesystem. I mean I never thought to mount an image sitting elsewhere on the network. Neat.

Quote:

I guess the same can be done with DiskImage or similar, and SMBFS, under AmigaOS too. At least if you keep filesize limits in your mind. I don't remember if Amiga version of SMBFS has 64bit support or not (MorphOS version does have), but I guess images under 2GB should be fine in any case, or maybe 4GB(?), and bigger ones if the 64bit support is there.

Should be possible yes. I haven't checked Samba on OS4 for ages. But at most 4GB should be in range if it doesn't do 64-bit. I checked OS4Depot and Smbfs has no specific mention of 64-bit files.

Quote:

BTW. little off-topic for curiosity, I also run the emulated OS4 setup over RDesktop on MorphOS, so I have OS4 running on MorphOS and don't have to touch the PC at all (literally) :P

LOL. I knew there was a better use for RDesktop than using it to view Windows.

Last edited by Hypex on 14-Jan-2019 at 02:20 PM.

@Hypex

Quote:

Hypex wrote: @jPV Quote: No, files in an SMBFS share are handled just like files on a local drive. It's the same if I mount an HDD image from a local or remote drive, OS just sees the image file that it handles on the filesystem level, and nothing gets "extracted" in the middle. That's pretty good. I didn't know that was possible with a network filesystem. I mean I never thought to mount an image sitting elsewhere on the network. Neat.

Yea, I use this quite often with all kinds of ISO images too. I have ISO images of magazine cover CDs, BBS collections, OS installation CDs, Amiga Future DVD archive, etc etc sitting on my private local server where I have more space than on my desktop machine and filesystems supporting bigger files. I can just mount them from there over SMBFS when I want to check something out, and won't need to find the actual physical CD/DVD or connect any external USB drives, and I don't have to have the contents extracted anywhere (it would be messy with contents of thousands of small files). I have even updated my MorphOS setup from a mounted ISO image over network without copying it to any local media :)

Last edited by jPV on 14-Jan-2019 at 04:18 PM.

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@Hypex

Quote:

Can it support 256 length file names and unlimted directory depth for example?

Long filename support in AmigaOS is only 128 long filenames.

Joliet extension on PC fixed the problem with short filenames in original ISO9660 filesystem-

the "Rock Ridge" used on Amiga, and Unix systems, also supports long filenames up to 255 chars.

Quote:

OS4 can read an ISO9660 formatted Bluray disc.

Most blueray discs use UDF.

anyway the iso9660 will is not outdated yet.

Size Limitations
ISO 9660 filesystems can have up to 2 exp 32 blocks, i.e. 8 TiB. Normally they will be restricted to the size of optical media. (Currently up to 100 GiB with 4-layer BD-R.)

The maximum size of data files depends on the Level of Interchange that is intended for the ISO filesystem. Levels 1 and 2 allow for 4 GiB - 1, because a single Directory Record can claim up to that number of bytes. Level 3 allows to have multiple consequtive Directory Records with the same name. They all are to be concatenated to a single data file. This means that a single data file can nearly fill up the full 8 TiB of image size.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 15-Jan-2019 at 05:48 PM.

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