Re: tar, backup, growisofs, file names

[Andy Polyakov <appro@fy.chalmers.se>]

> /bin/tar cf -   --files-from $INCLUDEFILE \
>                 --exclude-from $EXCLUDEFILE \
>                 --absolute-names \
>         | bzip2 --best --stdout \
>         | growisofs -Z /dev/dvd=/dev/fd/0
> 
> like this, growisofs writes to the raw medium, without a fs (i
> think). that is half ok for full backups, but i wanted to do
> incremental backups, too, to the same dvd.
> 
> how can i have  * reading from stdin (from tar/bzip)
>                 * named backup files and a filesystem
>                 * no writing to hardisc first (i dont want
>                   to rely on 4.4G beeing free.)

You can't achieve all this at once with growisofs. What you look for is
live read-write file system on DVD+RW, which requires kernel support.
Unfortunately not all DVD+capable units are capable to sustain true
random I/O, see
http://lists.debian.org/cdwrite/2003/cdwrite-200309/msg00015.html and
follow-ups. There was work done to compensate for deficient firmwares,
see http://lists.debian.org/cdwrite/2003/cdwrite-200309/msg00061.html.
But public consensus seem to be it's too slow to be practical. A.