PUCC entombing system (Was: fixing rm *)

[Rich Kulawiec]

I just wanted to take the opportunity to plug the entombing system
developed locally, and now in general use here.  For further info,
it's probably best to contact Matthew Bradburn at mjb at j.cc.purdue.edu,
since he's the author.   Enclosed below is the abstract from the paper
describing the system.

               "rm *  .o" vs. the Novice User

                    Matthew J. Bradburn

             Purdue University Computing Center
                  West Lafayette, IN 47907

                          ABSTRACT

     This paper addresses the need for a  mechanism  to
     recover  accidentally  deleted files.  We consider
     various procedures for  saving  ("entombing")  the
     these files and the relative merits of each.

     Many of our  users  occasionally  have  reason  to
     require  the restoration of some file, or group of
     files,  which  has  been   accidentally   deleted.
     Currently,  each  user  must  create  his own file
     backup  procedure  which  may  not  be  efficient,
     effective,  or  secure,  and  which may cause some
     inconvenience by consuming a large portion of  the
     user's  allotted  disk  space, or they must burden
     the  Computing  Center  staff  with  requests   to
     retrieve files from backup tape, a procedure which
     may involve the loss of many hours' work and which
     may not result in the recovery of the file.

     While we recognize  that  the  most  comprehensive
     method  of solving this problem is to do so at the
     kernel level, we feel  that  practical  considera-
     tions (including portability) make other solutions
     more attractive.  Our system of file entombing can
     be  added  to  any  program  without  source  code
     changes  by  recompiling  it  with  our  entombing
     library.   This  causes our subroutines to be sub-
     stituted for system calls which  commonly  destroy
     files.