VfsBackup

VfsBackup is a mobile backup solution for VFS enabled PalmOS devices, e.g. Handhelds with SDRAM or similar removable RAM extensions.

news

2004-11-16 : documentation update

I added a new section explaining the Modification Missmatch dialog.

2004-10-12 : other backup programs

• VfsBackup is not VFSBackup. Please take care of the spelling if you mention either on your website, in forums, etc.
• Red Feline Backup by Daniel Thompson is a program similar to VfsBackup and also licenced under the GPL.

2004-09-29 : release of VfsBackup 1.1

New in this release is a preferences dialog, which gives you the following options:

• You can skip the report log after an action has finished.
• Choose between two cleanup methods: "Delete" or "Move to Attic"
• Perform a cleanup after every backup automatically.
• Disable the dialog, which notifies an imminent reset after restores.
• Set a debug message level. To disable reporting of debug errors altogether, set the level to 0. Note that even if you leave debug messages enabled, you can now skip all following messages for the current session by selecting "OK All" in the debug dialog.

There are several other small improvements and bugfixes. I am sure you will notice some of them :-)

2004-09-14 : release of VfsBackup 1.0

This is the first official release.

documentation

actions available in VfsBackup

Backup

Backup all RAM-databases to /PALM/VfsBackup. Only Databases that have been modified since the last backup will be transfered.

Restore

Restore all databases from /PALM/VfsBackup to RAM. Existing RAM-Databases will be replaced. This means that you should always run Backup before restoring any data. If required, a soft reset will be performed after Restore.

Cleanup

All databases that exist in /PALM/VfsBackup but not in RAM will be moved to /PALM/VfsBackup/Attic. Existing databases in Attic with the same name will be overwritten. You can change this behaviour to simply deleting the database (which is much faster) in the Preferences dialog.

While processing these actions, you can hit the Abort button anytime to stop the current action immediately. Note that all changes performed so far will not be reverted.

After every action, you will see a logfile, listing all databases which have been transfered during the action. You can review the last logfile at any time by selecting Show Log from the menu.

In general, you should use VfsBackup like this:

     .------------.
     |            |
     V            |
use your pda -> Backup -> Cleanup ---.
     ^                               |
     |                               V
     '--- Restore <- replace batteries

startup routine

The following steps are executed everytime you enter VfsBackup.

1. Check if an SDRAM card is inserted. If it is missing, the following steps are not executed.
2. Check if the directories /PALM/Launcher, /PALM/VfsBackup and /PALM/VfsBackup/Attic exist and create them if necessary.
3. VfsBackup copies itself to /PALM/Launcher/VfsBackup.prc if the file does not already exist or if it has an older modification time than the RAM version. You can use this copy of VfsBackup to restore your PalmPilot after battery change etc.

modification missmatch

Sometimes during a backup, you might see a Modification Missmatch dialog pop up. This happens if VfsBackup was not able to clearly identify the named database as being older or newer than an existing backup.

Every database has a modification date and a modification number. Normally, if the contents of a database changes, the modifcation date will be set to the actual date and the modification number will be increased by one. But it's also possible that only one value changes and the other stays the same.

A Modification Missmatch occurs only if the modification date of the database in RAM is newer than the modification date of an existing backup, but its modification number is lower or vice versa. This can happen for example if you forget to set the clock after a longer power loss.

Here is an example of the information presented by the dialog:

[!] MemoDB                    database name
s: 2000-1-6 23:30:41          modification date of db in RAM (source)
(000001FF)                    modification number
d: 2004-10-17 23:20:59        modification date of the backup (destination)
(000001F7)                    modification number

You have to decide what to do with the database (via the two dialog buttons):

Transfer

Backup the database, overwriting the previous backup.

Skip

Do not backup the database and leave the previous backup as it is.

To make things easier (but a little less secure), i plan to add an optional alternative behaviour, which will automatically backup every database whose modification date or number is any different from the backup.

download

If you want to help, please send suggestions, bug reports, patches, etc. to aku at planepla.net.

license

VfsBackup - Life Support For Your Palm

Copyright (C) 2003,2004 Andre Kuehne - aku at planepla.net

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA