On Mon, 2002-03-11 at 14:16, Joshua Baker-LePain wrote: OK, here's what I've found:
This works, but it doesn't work the way I thought it might. I didn't understand IRG (Inter Record Gaps) but now, I think I have a better grasp of it. Below are the 4 commands that I used to restore some files without amanda. Note: I only use GNUtar: mt -f /dev/nst0 rewind mt -f /dev/nst0 fsf 1 cd to_any_tmp_directory dd if=/dev/nst0 bs=32k skip=1 | /bin/tar -xvf - Here's the odd part (odd to me anyway) The first time I did the dd command, only the /boot partition from one of my backed-up Linux boxes was untared and then it stopped (I thought the entire tape would be untared all at once). So, I did the same dd command again, and the /home directory (from a different Linux box was untared). The next time, it was a W2K 'Docs and Settings' directory,etc. This is what I think is happening (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). Amanda writes data images to tape using 32KB blocks. The first block of data in the image is an Amanda header that has manual recovery directions (that's why dd requires a skip=1). So, each time one image is restored, dd and tar hit an IRG and stop. The subsequent dd command moves on to the next Amanda image, etc. It isn't as convenient as I thought it would be, but it does the job. Thanks to all for the tips!
