On Tue, 3 Jul 2001 08:36, DStevenson wrote:
> On Sunday 01 July 2001 15:16, David E. Fox wrote:
> > > backup in order to re-instate my old system from tape. I would always
> > > backup the directories /root and /home, but if I restored say /usr,
> > > would I have all my old programs again...this is what I would like, but
> > > is this correct.
> >
> > Yeah, unless something went wrong, you'd have the old stuff still there.
> > You'd at a minimum want to backup /home, /etc, /usr/local and other
> > places where you'd typically make changes after the system is installed
> > (a reinstall shouldn't touch /home or anything under /usr/local, but it
> > certainly might put system defaults into /etc.)
> >
> > > If any of you are using tape drives...what systems do you use.
> >
> > I've had a 2gb (not a whole lot for today's standards) 4mm DAT tape for
> > a few years. During the time I've used it, I've tried a few different
> > methods. I gave BRU and Arkeia a spin, thought they were pretty good. I
> > tried Perfect Backup, which is pretty much a look & feel clone of the old
> > DOS Fastback Plus program (which is what I used to use when I had
> > Windows). Unfortunately, I couldn't get the d&mn thing to restore, so out
> > it went.
> >
> > I've pretty much settled on tar and/or dump. Tar is pretty much the
> > easier of the two, but dump isn't all too difficult either. The one
> > important thing is that your data should be easily restorable. For most
> > (especially X-based) backup systems, that means nearly a complete
> > reinstall of the system plus the backup software, whilst tar/dump/restore
> > can be put on a rescue floppy.
> >
> > > I am using tar at the moment...is this the best choice? I can retrieve
> > > single files this way, but is there alternatives?
> >
> > Yes, but slowly. It's ok for select directories but if you are trying to
> > resture a single file you might have to slog through the tape to get to
> > it. Some of the alternative ones have waysto speed this process up: they
> > can put index files on the tape, for instance. restore (the companion
> > to dump) has a neat interactive shell where you can see what's on the
> > tape, change directories, etc.
> >
> > > The tape unit size is 14Gig, but this is with compression of 2:1, how
> > > do I get this compression, do I have to tar -zcvf for example. Is this
> > > a bad idea though?
> >
> > The drive might have a jumper you can set to enable compression - at
> > least IIRC there's one on my HP DAT. But I would advise against
> > compressing the whole stream, since a bit error in the middle can make
> > the rest unusable.
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > David E. Fox Thanks for letting me
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED] change magnetic patterns
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED] on your hard disk.
> > -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Thanks for the tips, I have now installed the dump rpm and will set about
> learning how to use it. I have looked at some of the software you
> mentioned, but it was way way overkill for my humble peer to peer linux
> network.
>
> Thanks again,
> Dave.
Out of curosity...has anyone been using dump with a reiser fs?
The reason I'm asking is I just looked at the first line of the man page and
that made me wonder
Andrew
