VIRECOVER(8)

💅 VIRECOVER(8) — like, the system manager's manual edition, bestie 🎀

okay so real quick, before we dive in: this whole page lives in section 8 of the manual (that's the sysadmin corner of the man-page universe, iykyk), and it's giving "unsung hero of your boot sequence" energy. let's go ✨

🌸 NAME 🌸

vi.recover — the little cutie that reports back on your recovered nvi edit sessions 🦋

🫶 SYNOPSIS 🫶

/usr/libexec/vi.recover

that's it. no flags, no arguments, no drama. she just runs. periodt 💅

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

okay so picture this: vi.recover sends out emails to every user who's got nvi(1) recovery files sitting around. yes bestie, actual emails, she's old school like that 💌

and what's in the email? literally the whole glow-up: it gives you the name of the file that got saved for recovery, plus the instructions for getting back most (if not, like, all) of the changes to that file. and how do you do that? you use the -r option with nvi(1). that's the whole trick. go check the -r option over in nvi(1) for the deets, no cap 🔥

now, the cleanup part. if the backup files have the execute bit set or they're zero length, that means they were never actually modified — so vi.recover just deletes them to tidy up. she's not a hoarder, she's a curator ✨

she also removes recovery files that are corrupted, zero length, or that don't have a corresponding backup file. like, if you're not gonna match, you're not staying. bye 👋

and the vibe check on when she runs: vi.recover is normally run automatically at boot time. main character energy fr fr 👑

🍓 FILES 🍓

• /var/tmp/vi.recover/recover.* — the nvi(1) recovery files 💾
• /var/tmp/vi.recover/vi.* — the nvi(1) editor backup files 🗂️

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• nvi(1)

(that's the one. she's the only friend on the list, and honestly? iconic.)

👑 AUTHORS 👑

this man page was originally written by Jeremy C. Reed <reed@reedmedia.net> — ty for your service king 🫡💜

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aaaand that's the whole page bestie, no crumbs left 🧚 Debian shipped this one on October 9, 2006 (yes, she's vintage, she's thriving), and it's the VIRECOVER(8) page from the System Manager's Manual. mwah 💋✨🌸