So what would be really cool, IMHO, is a 'venusdump' program that
would read RVM and the container files and output a stream in BSD dump
format that would have the following properties:

 * level 0 gets the whole cache.  level 1 the files that aren't on the
   server.  other levels are probably not needed.

 * one could simply run restore on it to get a filesystem hierarchy in
   a normal fs containing all the files in the cache

 * one could run 'venusrestore' on it which would perhaps init rvm and
   add the cached files and their metadata (version vectors) back into
   the client cache

To do this, I'd imagine one would have to make some fake files
containing metadata in the dump stream, and cope with collisions of
those names with existing files by some sort of escape coding
mechanism.

In addition, it would be nice to be able to run a similar program
'vicedump' on the server, getting essentially the same format, but
perhaps with different metadata records.

Together, this would enable moving client caches to new disks (very
helpful when one has 100 Mb cached on a 28.8 line), doing the same for
servers with a great degree of safety.  It could also enable a laptop
user with no net to spit the contents of the cache out to a floppy/zip
disk for safekeeping.  Perhaps most importantly for me, it would
provide a nice backup strategy - running vicedump on the server would
integrate with AMANDA, and also enable one to restore coda bits into a
regular filesystem in an emergency.

        Greg Troxel <gdt_at_ir.bbn.com>