I found the problem with my localhost timeouts (after setting up a test server so I could run tests during the day).
turns out that machine is so beaten up by disk I/O that estimates take ages. (the machine runs at a load of 2-4; estimates on a 3.2GB filesystem takes 15 minutes; and I want to back up 14-17GB). there's some things I can do to speed up the disks (hdparm -c1 -d1); but that's not a generalized solution. (I have a machine with SCSI disks, and the same problem.) I know I can turn up the estimate timeout; and this seems to help; but is there a way to turn off estimates, or get them to use 'du' instead of 'tar' to do the estimate? (dump isn't an option in this case). I know this has just been mentioned on the list; so if someone could point me in the direction to RTFM, I will. Carl Soderstrom. -- Network Engineer Real-Time Enterprises (952) 943-8700
