1BIO(1) General Commands Manual BIO(1)
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6 bio - Barry Input / Output
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9 bio -i <input type> -o <output type> [-o <output type> ...]
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12 bio is a command line tool that treats devices, backups, and data
13 streams as input and output. bio supports the following types of IO
14 (actual type name shown in bold):
15 device
18 tar (backup files)
20 boost (serialization files and streams)
22 mime streams
24 ldif streams
26 human readable and hex text dump
28 sha1 sum output
30 cstore for extracting Content Store records
32 Each command line consists of at least one input and output option,
35 along with their switches. More than one output can be used, as long
36 as they do not conflict with each other. For example, it is not possi‐
37 ble to read and write from the same device PIN.
38 This tool combines a lot of the functionality of btool, btardump, brec‐
41 sum, and bs11nread, but does it more flexibly, and improves functional‐
42 ity in some cases, such as Boost archives being able to contain more
43 than one database.
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47 The device type is used to read or write from a device connected via
48 USB. Some of the options below are valid only in one input or output
49 mode, some in both.
50 -d db Name of database to load, when using the device type as input.
52 Can be used multiple times. See btool -t for a list of data‐
53 bases on the device.
54 -A Selects all databases found on the device, instead of adding
56 them manually via the -d option.
57 -p pin PIN of device to talk to. Valid for both input and output.
59 Only needed if you have more than one Blackberry connected at
60 once.
61 -P password
63 Simplistic method to specify device password. In a real appli‐
64 cation, this would be done using a more secure prompt.
65 -w mode
67 Set write mode when using the device type in output mode. This
68 must be specified, or nothing will be written. Can be one of:
69 erase, overwrite, addonly, addnew.
70
74 The tar type is used to read or write from a backup file created by
75 btool or the backup GUI.
76 -d db Name of database to load, when using the tar type as input. Can
78 be used multiple times. Note that if no -d options are speci‐
79 fied, bio defaults to reading all available databases.
80 -f file
82 The tar backup file to read or write from. Bio uses gzip com‐
83 pressed tar files, so suitable extensions would be .tgz and
84 .tar.gz. Unfortunately, due to internal limitations, an actual
85 file must be specified here, and not - for stdin / stdout.
86
89 The boost type is used to read and write parsable records in Boost
90 Serialization format. These files were historically written and read
91 by btool and bs11nread. Bio is more flexible, in that it can contain
92 multiple databases in one serialization archive.
93 -f file
95 Filename to read from or write to. Use - to specify stdin or
96 stdout. If not specified for input, defaults to stdin, but
97 since output can contain non-ASCII chars, you must use -f - if
98 you want to write to stdout.
99
102 The ldif type is used to read or write ldif output, like the output of
103 the LDAP command line tool ldapsearch.
104 -c dn When using ldif as output, specify the base DN.
106 -C dnattr
108 Again, for output, specify the attribute name to use when build‐
109 ing the FQDN.
110
113 The mime type is used to read or write VCARD, VEVENT, VTODO, or VJOUR‐
114 NAL records based on the Address Book, Calendar, Tasks, or Memos data‐
115 bases respectively.
116 -f file
118 Filename to read from or write to. Defaults to - for stdin or
119 stdout.
120
123 The dump type is used only for output, and sends human readable record
124 data to stdout. Parsable records are parsed; unknown records are
125 dumped in hex format.
126 -n Use hex format for all records.
128
131 The sha1 type is used to mimic the behaviour of the brecsum command.
132 It calculates a SHA1 sum on the raw record data and sends the sum to
133 stdout.
134 -t Include the DB Name, Type, and Unique record ID in the checksum
136 for each record.
137
140 The cstore type is used to parse Content Store records.
141 -l List the filenames and folders found in the Content Store data‐
143 base.
144 -f file
146 Select a filename from the above list to extract and save
147 locally. Specify the entire path as shown in the -l list. If
148 the file is found in the device, it will be written to the cur‐
149 rent directory, using the base filename as the name. If a file
150 by that name exists already, the filename will be modified to
151 avoid overwriting local files.
152
155 -h Displays a detailed summary of command line options.
156 -I cs Set the international charset for string conversions. Valid
158 values here are available with iconv --list
159 -S Show list of supported database parsers and builders.
161 -v Dump verbose low level protocol data during USB operations, to
163 stdout.
164
170 1) Backup a full device to tar backup:
171 bio -i device -A -o tar -f mybackup.tar.gz
173 2) Read a backup file and convert the Address Book to MIME
175 bio -i tar -f mybackup.tar.gz -d "Address Book" -o mime
177 3) Copy the Calendar from one device to another, and dump
179 the records to stdout in human readable format at the same time
180 bio -i device -p 3009efe3 -d Calendar -o device -p 204062f3 -w
182 erase -o dump
183 4) Read LDIF input and convert the contacts to MIME format
185 ldapsearch -x | bio -i ldif -o mime
187 5) Test the record code by running the Tasks database through
189 the Boost storage and back to human readable
190 bio -i device -d Tasks -o dump
192 vs.
194 bio -i device -d Tasks -o boost -f - | bio -i boost -f - -o dump
196
199 bio is part of the Barry project.
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202 http://www.netdirect.ca/barry
203 December 21, 2010 BIO(1)