Techniques for establishing a file system that exposes a virtual file system for backup operations

• US 9,606,871 B2
• Filed: 01/08/2015
• Issued: 03/28/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 05/11/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Micro Focus Software, Inc. (Open Text Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Micro Focus Software, Inc. (Open Text Corporation)
• Inventors: Oza, Dhairesh
• Primary Examiner(s): NGUYEN, PHONG H
• Application Number:
  US14/592,537
• Publication Number:
  US 20150120667A1
• Time in Patent Office: 810 Days
• Field of Search: 707/640, 707/800, 707/831, 707/822
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1451 by selection of backup contents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1466 to make the backup process non-disruptive
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1734 Details of monitoring file system events, e.g. by the use of hooks, filter drivers, logs
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/188 Virtual file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/542 Event management; Broadcasting; Multicasting; Notifications

Abstract

Techniques for establishing a files system that exposes a virtual file system for backup operations are presented. Changes to files of a file system are maintained separately or collected and presented as a VFS. The VFS is then used to perform backup operations. Moreover, the files identified in the VFS can be customized based on search parameters, criterion, and/or criteria supplied by a user or supplied as parameters to backup and VFS mount operations.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

reporting at a kernel level of an Operating System (OS) modifications made to files that span multiple disparate file systems;

dynamically building a virtual file system (VFS) that records the modifications as a list and reporting until a backup command is initiated and re-reporting subsequent modifications detected after the backup command is initiated to a new dynamically created VFS; and

mounting the VFS for performing a selective backup on the multiple disparate file systems for just the modifications recorded in the list of the VFS.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein dynamically building further includes maintaining the list as a linked list of inodes for selective files associated with the modifications.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein reporting further includes identifying at least some modifications as changes to metadata with some of the files and identifying other modifications as other changes to primary data with other of the files.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising, presenting the VFS as a viewable file having the list.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein presenting further includes permitting selective items of the list to be manually modified.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein presenting further includes making other items of the list read only and incapable of being manually modified.