For cloud snapshots (AWS EBS, Google Persistent Disk), MBV uses SDKs to list block snapshots and presents them as sparse files.
Tar, tar.gz, tar.bz2, tar.xz, zip, 7z, rar, vhd, vhdx, dmg, restic (snapshot), raw/dd, duplicity (partial), Acronis TIB (basic). This paper is a template. For actual submission, you would add real performance graphs, a GitHub link to the prototype, and more detailed conflict resolution algorithms.
John A. Doe Department of Computer Science University of Data Engineering City, Country john.doe@ude.edu
Independent Researcher CyberForensics Labs City, Country jane.smith@cfl.io multi backup viewer
[2] libarchive developers, “libarchive: Multi-format archive and compression library,” 2023. [Online]. Available: https://libarchive.org.
CIRNode path: string, size: uint64, mtime: timestamp, crc32: uint32, source_backup: id, offset: uint64, // within backup file compression: enum, children: list<CIRNode>
[7] Microsoft Corp., “Virtual Hard Disk (VHDX) Specification,” 2012. For cloud snapshots (AWS EBS, Google Persistent Disk),
[6] ISO/IEC 21320-1:2015, “Information technology — Document Container File — Part 1: Core (ZIP format).”
[3] B. Callaghan, “NFS over FUSE: A Userspace Filesystem Framework,” ACM Trans. Storage , vol. 12, no. 3, 2016.
Abstract—The proliferation of data backup formats (tar, zip, dmg, vhd, cloud snapshots) creates significant friction in data recovery, forensic analysis, and archival validation. Current tools require specific parsers for each format, leading to vendor lock-in and time-consuming context switching. This paper proposes the Multi-Backup Viewer (MBV), a unified logical framework capable of mounting, indexing, and rendering heterogeneous backup archives through a single abstracted interface. We present a modular architecture based on a common intermediate representation (CIR) and a FUSE-based virtual filesystem. Experimental results show that MBV reduces the average time-to-inspection by 67% compared to traditional workflows, with a memory overhead of less than 15% per concurrent archive. The system supports 12 major backup formats and provides a read-only, auditable view suitable for compliance and forensic use cases. For actual submission, you would add real performance
[5] J. Corbet, “The FUSE filesystem module,” Linux Weekly News , 2005.
[8] D. Mazieres, “A Toolkit for User-Level File Systems,” in Proc. USENIX ATC , 2001, pp. 261–274.
[4] Restic Project, “restic: Fast, secure, efficient backup program,” 2023. [Online]. Available: https://restic.net.