I've spent the last few days setting up and tweaking my MDA, MTA and MUAs.
(mail delivery, transfer, user agents -- for the uninitiated) In the
process (included below), with your help, I've now got a backup solution
that let's me backup from windows (until I can figure ftape out). But the
significant thing is that these 2 steps -- working mail AND backing home
etc and root dirs -- has enabled me to switch my base of operation from NT
to Linux finally! :-) As of today -- due to working mail and a safety
backup method -- I've switched from saving my mail in NT to doing so in
Linux. :-)
I feel like I'm over the hump now on my migration FROM Windows TO Linux!
I can't say that I've mastered fetchmail, procmail and sendmail -- in fact
fortunately I found that I don't have to master sendmail for now because
it works fine (and it ain't easy! :-X)
I had barely a clue to this trio before you answered my original plea for
an OVERVIEW and told me about them! :-) (hence the title of this thread)
Procmail wasn't too hard to set up. Initially it was (only took 2
days!:-X) ; but I got the recommended FAQ and it was helpful. Now I have
recipes for routing my mail and preventing duplicates all set up and
working. There's much more to explore in procmail but at least I've got a
good basic set-up. It's easier to configure than it is to find out what
the hell it is!
Fetchmail is just the opposite. It was the easiest to set up but has taken
some testing to tweak.
Pine is what I'm using now for e-mail. (Actually I've been familiar with
it for years from when I'd use my shell account and get a taste of unix.)
The way it's set up I can still use netscape messenger for e-mail
occasionally when I'm doing GUI-ish things without interfering or losing
messages in my pine folder system.
I can't promise I won't have more problems with some of these things, but
at least I can carry on with the rest of my migrating now. (key things for
me are parallel tape backup (ftape driver -- unless a recent kernel
includes the latest??? as was hoped), some comm program to translate a
script to for daily downloads of stock and mutual fund closes (I'm using
procomm now -- might be easiest to use that in linux -- I understand there
is one), then getting my database stuff (foxpro in dosemu initially) and
other general apps working. Then my migration will be complete.
I want to thank you, Michael, and the others here who've contributed to
this thread.
To follow is my reply to your latest message:
On Fri, 21 May 1999, Michael B. Trausch wrote:
> On Fri, 21 May 1999, JF wrote:
> > >
> Right. There is a setup for others, but that gets more complicated, which
> is totally out of my ballpark of knowledge for the moment. When I
> graduate from high school, I'll have the ability to get a job so that I
> can afford to get the technical docs in paper on all of that stuff, and
> sit down, and learn it ;).
You're a smart kid. ;-) Yeah -- the Bat book and its companion. I was
tempted to buy it when I was in the middle of my aggravation with
sendmail. But then I found out, with your help, was in pine -- not
sendmail.
> > Is netscape using sendmail to transport?
> >
>
> By default, yes. However, if you configured it like you would for the
> Windows version, then the answer is no. It depends 100% on what your
> setup is ;-)
You must mean the smtp server. If you use your isp's then it's "like
windows" -- right? I changed mine to localhost -- so it must be using
sendmail now.
> Here's a script that will back up all of /home and /etc:
Once again you've been VERY helpful! :-)
Here's how I modified it to suit my purposes of putting it on a FAT drive
so I can back it up on tape as well:
#!/bin/sh
#
# Simple Backup Script
# (C) 1999 Michael B. Trausch
# modified by Jamie Faunt
clear ; echo "removing \"rm -f /tmp/*.tar.gz \*\"..."
rm -f /tmp/*.tar.gz
clear ; echo "executing \"tar c /home/\*\"..."
tar c --exclude="cache" /home/* > /tmp/home.tar
echo ""
clear ; echo "executing \"tar c /root/\*\"..."
tar c --exclude="cache" /root/* > /tmp/rootdir.tar
echo ""
echo "executing \"tar c /etc/\*\"..."
tar c /etc/* > /tmp/etc.tar
echo ""
echo "compressing /tmp/home.tar..."
gzip /tmp/home.tar
echo "compressing /tmp/rootdir.tar..."
gzip /tmp/rootdir.tar
echo "compressing /tmp/etc.tar..."
gzip /tmp/etc.tar
# clear
# echo "job done!"
cd /tmp
ls -l *.gz
mount /mnt/drvg
cp -b *.tar.gz /mnt/drvg/linuxbak
ls -l /mnt/drvg/linuxbak
umount /mnt/drvg
echo "home & etc backed up and copied to fat drive."
> Now, if you want that to happen regularly, then put the script in
> someplace like /bin, and have cron run it as root regularly.
YEah -- I figured out how to use crontab and have it backing up regularly
now. :-)
> My recommendation is that if you have a CD-R drive, that you place the
> gzip'd tar file onto a CD-R about once per month. That way, if something
> irrevokable does happen, you'd be able to recover from it.
oh -- you mean a CD-rom burner (writer)? That's an idea! Are those cheap
nowadays?
Anyway, Cheers!
Jamie
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The Faunt School of Creative Music
Accelerated Music Mastery
_________________________
http://www.pacificnet.net/~faunt/
phone:818-506-MUSE
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