[plug] OS X -> Linux Backup

[Bruce M. Axtens]

Tim

.DS_Store doesn't contain resource forks. What is does contain is 
<http://lowendmac.com/crews/06/0104.html>.

The issue of resource forks was supposed to have been resolved with Mac 
OS X by moving everything into the data fork, and packaging 
applications as specially structured directories. Supposed to have been 
...

Carbon apps and other carryovers from pre OS X days have resource 
forks. Strangely though, on my Jaguar iBook, there are files which you 
would think would be resource fork free ... but they're not. For 
example:

blogs.msdn.com:ericlippert:.webloc
blogs.msdn.com:ericlippert:.webloc/..namedfork/rsrc
Seminar Confirmation_WA_4Apr.pdf
Seminar Confirmation_WA_4Apr.pdf/..namedfork/rsrc
JobApplix
JobApplix/..namedfork/rsrc

Note the ../namedfork/rsrc which is the path spec for the resource fork.
JobApplix is an alias, a symlink, to a folder on another device.

'lsmac -frsrc' for the above items gives

------  ilht MACS    474  B  blogs.msdn.com:ericlippert:.webloc
----A-  fdrp MACS    654  B  JobApplix --> (null)
-C----              63.6 KB  Seminar Confirmation_WA_4Apr.pdf

So the webloc, the symlink, and the pdf all have resource forks. I 
downloaded the pdf from a Windows site. so how it came to have a 
resource fork is mysterious.

Now if you do 'echo> 
blogs.msdn.com:ericlippert:.webloc/..namedfork/rsrc' you end up with a 
broken webloc file which takes you nowhere. Mac OS X tells you it's 
broken, too.

Okay, so that then brings us to the question: how do i handle resource 
forks in those situations where I know they're going to give me trouble 
if I don't retain them.

On solution I found was hfstar: "A version of gnutar for Mac OS X that 
supports archiving HFS+ specific information such as resource forks, 
type and creator codes as well as other finder flags. Download the full 
source code or a precompiled binary. Being just a patch for gnutar, 
hfstar is provided free of charge under the GPL.
Another similar solution to archiving HFS+ fileystems is Howard 
Oakley's hfspax." hfstar is at 
<http://www.metaobject.com/Products.html> and hfspax is at 
<http://homepage.mac.com/howardoakley/>.

The obvious downside is that everything's wrapped up inside a tar or 
pax file. You could be inventive and turn every file into a file.hfstar 
...

There's a nice long blurbs about the issues at 
<http://www.bombich.com/mactips/image.html> and 
<http://developer.apple.com/macosx/backuponmacosx.html>. If the Mac is 
running Tiger, there's a resource fork aware rsync available, see 
<http://www.egg-tech.com/mac_backup/>.

I use rsync ... used rsync until the latest disk crash ... will 
probably use rsync again, though usually to back up my USB drive. I'm 
still looking for the perfect Mac OS X backup.

Regards,
Bruce.