[BBLISA] Definition of dump levels?

[Edward Ned Harvey]

> The problem (issue) with dump/tar/cpio, esp once you starting doing
> mixed backups with a mix of backups, then you have a major problem at
> restore time, since tar/dump/cpio doesn't *DELETE* files which were
> backed up at level 0, then deleted (or renamed) from subsequent
> backups.
> 
> So when you do a recover, those files all come back again, not just
> the files at the time of restore.

Yeah, I'll agree to that.  There is in fact a problem with the fact that
restoring full/incremental backups means that you "resurrect" files that
were deleted in between those two dates.  The files were deleted for a
reason, and should not come back.

However, I don't know any good way to handle this, do you?  (Beside the
obvious solution of full backup every day.)  In my environment, full backups
take too long to do them every day.  I can afford to spend 12 hours per day
maxing out the IO on the weekend, but not during the week when people are
expecting the systems to be available and perform real work.

The one saving grace here is that usually when a user requests a restore,
they name a specific file, and want the most recent version of that file.
Usually you don't have to restore an entire full backup, which would
resurrect the dead files.