Linux backup - mdbtools detect corruption?

[Frank Halley]

Greetings

I am currently doing an hourly back up the backend of a split Access/Jet
system onto a Linux box (using a cron script to copy and zip it up). Yes, I
know this is slightly risky with connected users. There is a nightly tape
backup but I don't want to risk losing a day's work.

I have noticed that when the backend has some corruption (rarely), running
the simple sql query system of the linux mdbtools fails.
eg in one case a table "items" showed corruption, but running "select * from
clients" under mdbtools failed with an error (segmentation fault or
something similar). It didn't matter which file I used in the select
statement. After a compact and repair, the select query ran without error.

I am using the error (if there is one) to cause an email alert to the dba
(myself) to run an overnight compact and repair. The database is only used
during business hours

Does anyone know if this technique is a reliable indicator of database
corruption? My problem is that corruption is so rare (as far as I know
anyway) that I only have two test cases to verify this. In one case,
compact and repair fixed it; in the other case it didn't so I had to resort
to the overnight tape and rebuild. Incidentally, mdbtools works regardless
of Access user security!

Frank Halley