mtftar 1.5 review

mtftar is a filter to translate MTF and BKF backup streams from NT operating system, to the TAR archves used by the rest of the world

License: GPL (GNU General Public License) File size: 16K Developer: Internet Connection, Inc.

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mtftar is a filter to translate MTF and BKF backup streams from NT operating system, to the TAR archves used by the rest of the world.

MTF is a format commonly found on Microsoft systems as it's what is generated by the NTBACKUP.EXE tool that ships with all modern versions of Windows.

Usage:

mtftar [-v] [-p] [-s setno] [patterns...] < backup.btf | tar xvf -
mtftar [-v] [-p] [-s setno] -f backup.btf [patterns...] | tar xvf -
mtftar [-v] [-p] [-s setno] -f backup.btf -o output.tar [patterns...]
mtftar [-v] [-p] [-s setno] -o output.tar [patterns...] < backup.btf
mtftar -l [-v] [-s setno] < backup.btf
mtftar -l [-v] [-s setno] -f backup.btf
mtftar -L [-v] [-s setno] < backup.btf
mtftar -L [-v] [-s setno] -f backup.btf

mtftar is most often used as a filter, as in:

mtftar < MyBackup.bkf | tar xvf -

mtftar can read Incremental, Differential, Copy, and Normal backups, but it does not understand them. If you are using these backup modes in separate bkf files, you should be careful to order your extractions.

mtftar _should_ be able to read directly from the TAPE drive on Linux, and possibly other systems as well.

mtftar can pre-filter the input stream as well as patch the pathnames on-the-fly. this is done with the -p option which "strips" what is matched as prefix on the patterns.

mtftar does NOT understand the ACL streams, although patches would be accepted that translated these into the POSIX ACL extensions for the TAR format.

parts of mtftar, and most of the best-knowledge on the bkf file format, and MTF in general comes from a hard-to-find program called "mtf" which I cannot find again, but seems to be written by a D. Alan Stewart. "mtf" crashed an awful lot, and generated bogus output frequently, but nevertheless, was invaluable in building mtftar. "mtf" was released under the GNU Public License version 2 or any later version.

What's New in This Release:
This release automatically converts utf16le names to utf8.