NAME¶
bio - Barry Input / Output
SYNOPSIS¶
bio -i <input type> [input args] -o <output type> [output args]
[-o <output type> ...]
DESCRIPTION¶
bio is a command line tool that treats devices, backups, and data streams
as input and output.
bio supports the following types of IO (actual
type name shown in bold):
- device
tar (backup files)
boost (serialization files and streams)
mime streams
ldif streams
human readable and hex text dump
sha1 sum output
cstore for extracting Content Store records
Each command line consists of at least one input and output option, along with
their switches. More than one output can be used, as long as they do not
conflict with each other. For example, it is not possible to read and write
from the same device PIN.
This tool combines a lot of the functionality of
btool, btardump,
brecsum, and
bs11nread, but does it more flexibly, and improves
functionality in some cases, such as Boost archives being able to contain more
than one database.
DEVICE TYPE OPTIONS¶
The
device type is used to read or write from a device connected via USB.
Some of the options below are valid only in one input or output mode, some in
both.
- -d db
- Name of database to load, when using the device type
as input. Can be used multiple times. See btool -t for a list of
databases on the device.
- -A
- Selects all databases found on the device, instead of
adding them manually via the -d option.
- -p pin
- PIN of device to talk to. Valid for both input and output.
Only needed if you have more than one Blackberry connected at once.
- -P password
- Simplistic method to specify device password. In a real
application, this would be done using a more secure prompt.
- -w mode
- Set write mode when using the device type in output
mode. This must be specified, or nothing will be written. Can be one of:
erase, overwrite, addonly, addnew.
- erase Erases all records from existing database and
adds all new records to the device, using their Unique IDs, if available.
This is what you would normally use to restore a backup.
overwrite Adds any new records, and for records with Unique IDs that
already exist on the device, overwrite them.
addonly Adds any new records, but if a record exists in the device
with the same Unique ID, skip that record and don't write it to the
device.
addnew Adds all incoming records as brand new records, generating a
new Unique ID for each one, and leaving any existing records intact. This
may cause data duplication if you're restoring data that initially came
from this same device. Use this for copying data from another device,
while keeping your existing records.
TAR TYPE OPTIONS¶
The
tar type is used to read or write from a backup file created by btool
or the backup GUI.
- -d db
- Name of database to load, when using the tar type as
input. Can be used multiple times. Note that if no -d options are
specified, bio defaults to reading all available databases.
- -f file
- The tar backup file to read or write from. Bio uses
gzip compressed tar files, so suitable extensions would be .tgz and
.tar.gz. Unfortunately, due to internal limitations, an actual file must
be specified here, and not - for stdin / stdout.
BOOST TYPE OPTIONS¶
The
boost type is used to read and write parsable records in Boost
Serialization format. These files were historically written and read by
btool and
bs11nread. Bio is more flexible, in that it can
contain multiple databases in one serialization archive.
- -f file
- Filename to read from or write to. Use - to specify stdin
or stdout. If not specified for input, defaults to stdin, but since output
can contain non‐ASCII chars, you must use -f - if you want to write
to stdout.
LDIF TYPE OPTIONS¶
The
ldif type is used to read or write ldif output, like the output of
the LDAP command line tool
ldapsearch.
- -c dn
- When using ldif as output, specify the base DN.
- -C dnattr
- Again, for output, specify the attribute name to use when
building the FQDN.
MIME TYPE OPTIONS¶
The
mime type is used to read or write VCARD, VEVENT, VTODO, or VJOURNAL
records based on the Address Book, Calendar, Tasks, or Memos databases
respectively.
- -f file
- Filename to read from or write to. Defaults to - for stdin
or stdout.
DUMP TYPE OPTIONS¶
The
dump type is used only for output, and sends human readable record
data to stdout. Parsable records are parsed; unknown records are dumped in hex
format.
- -n
- Use hex format for all records.
SHA1 TYPE OPTIONS¶
The
sha1 type is used to mimic the behaviour of the
brecsum
command. It calculates a SHA1 sum on the raw record data and sends the sum to
stdout.
- -t
- Include the DB Name, Type, and Unique record ID in the
checksum for each record.
CSTORE TYPE OPTIONS¶
The
cstore type is used to parse Content Store records.
- -l
- List the filenames and folders found in the Content Store
database.
- -f file
- Select a filename from the above list to extract and save
locally. Specify the entire path as shown in the -l list. If the file is
found in the device, it will be written to the current directory, using
the base filename as the name. If a file by that name exists already, the
filename will be modified to avoid overwriting local files.
STANDALONE OPTIONS¶
- -h
- Displays a detailed summary of command line options.
- -I cs
- Set the international charset for string conversions. Valid
values here are available with iconv --list
- -S
- Show list of supported database parsers and builders.
- -v
- Dump verbose low level protocol data during USB operations,
to stdout.
EXAMPLES¶
- 1) Backup a full device to tar backup:
- bio -i device -A -o tar -f mybackup.tar.gz
- 2) Read a backup file and convert the Address Book to
MIME
- bio -i tar -f mybackup.tar.gz -d "Address Book"
-o mime
- 3) Restore a single database to a device
- bio -i tar -f mybackup.tar.gz -d "Address Book"
-o device -w erase
- 4) Copy the Calendar from one device to another, and
dump
- the records to stdout in human readable format at the same
time
- bio -i device -p 3009efe3 -d Calendar -o device -p 204062f3
-w erase -o dump
- 5) Read LDIF input and convert the contacts to MIME
format
- ldapsearch -x | bio -i ldif -o mime
- 6) Test the record code by running the Tasks database
through
- the Boost storage and back to human readable
- bio -i device -d Tasks -o dump
vs.
bio -i device -d Tasks -o boost -f - | bio -i boost -f - -o dump
AUTHOR¶
bio is part of the Barry project.
SEE ALSO¶
http://www.netdirect.ca/barry