Hi Norman,

>> I can't recall if gbak returns an exit error code if something weird
>> happens,
> On Linux, it returns zero for all ok and 1 for something bad happened.
>
> > but to check if a backup is valid, the only thing you can do is
>> to restore the backup and see if this process goes through. This is
>> something I do for critical databases/backups.
> Always good advice. There is always a possibility that the backup
> worked, but the file could still be corrupt. :-(

Yep! Had several requests already from people complaining their backup
file is corrupted. One infamous is, with databases having a lot of
trigger, procedures and interdependencies.

A restore might fail with mismatched parameters (can't recall the exact
error message) for procedures ... Nasty! The only way out here is to
have a working database and re-compile all PSQL stuff on parameter list
changes etc ...

IMHO, there is (a lot of) space for improvements in the backup/restore
area of Firebird. While with gbak, one can only be sure if a backup is
valid by running a restore (which gets very interesting in the > 100 GB
area *g*), nbackup is dumb from a logical data POV, cause it works on
page level, but that's ok, because it was designed to offer incremental
stuff etc ...

A healthy backup environment for big Firebird databases is
"challenging". ;-)



--
With regards,

Thomas Steinmaurer
Upscene Productions
http://www.upscene.com
http://blog.upscene.com/thomas/

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