Re: ftape format warning!!!
Hi Daniel -- You asked: Just one question... Does taper implicitly call 'mt'? Well, no. In fact, taper does its own ioctl calls, which is why it is behind the other general-purpose utilities in supporting a broad array of hardware. I spent a long time studying both taper and tob, and I'm strongly convinced that tob is the way to go. It is a shell script which uses well-tested utilities to do the I/O, it's got a robust archive system, and excellent (clear) documentation. Give it a try. Good luck, Susan Kleinmann
Re: ftape format warning!!!
Ken Gaugler writes: Ken I had a nasty surprise using ftape to dump my filesystems for Ken archival right before repartitioning my hard drive. I wanted to let Ken people know about this in case they were not already aware. Ken Ken If you plan to dump several filesystems to one tape (that is, more Ken than one session on a tape) you need to erase the tape using mt Ken FIRST!!! Otherwise you will not be able to read any sessions beyond Ken the first. You could have read the Ftape-HOWTO before attempting to do this. It says: 6.4. Putting more than one tar file on a tape To put more than one tar file on a tape you must have the mt utility. You will probably have it already, if you got one of the mainline distributions, e.g. Slackware or Debian. tar generates a single Tape ARchive (that's why it is called `tar') and knows nothing about multiple files or positioning of a tape, it just reads or writes from/to a device. mt knows everyting about moving the tape back and forth, but nothing about reading the data off the tape. As you might have guessed, tar and mt in conjunction, does the trick. By using the nrft[0-3] (nftape) device, you can use `mt' to position the tape the correct place (`mt -f /dev/nftape fsf 2' means step over two ``file marks'', i.e. tar files) and then use tar to read or write the relevant data. Ken There were only two sessions on my tape. Sadly, the second session Ken contained the /usr filesystem, so I lost everything :( Moreover, you can simplify your life by using a program as tob which reads from several filesystems. Debian tob's package is in the admin section. -- Dirk Eddelbuttel http://qed.econ.queensu.ca/~edd
Re: ftape format warning!!!
There were only two sessions on my tape. Sadly, the second session contained the /usr filesystem, so I lost everything :( Whenever doing backups, _verify_ your backups, even if it doubles the time it takes to do them. Oh, and whenever you're going to do something dangerous, _double_ your backups. It's _not_ funny to try to restore from the backup you verified yesterday, only to notice that something bad happened a floppy over the night. Don't ask why I know this. Using modern floppies (3.5) for backups is not a good anyway, but sometimes you can't afford a tape drive. Not that tapes don't get errors, too. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing properly. That applies to paranoia, too. -- Rural sizes win [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.iki.fi/liw/ Please don't Cc: me when replying to my message on a mailing list. pgpt5cgQXsmlZ.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: ftape format warning!!!
: : There were only two sessions on my tape. Sadly, the second session : contained the /usr filesystem, so I lost everything :( Rejoice! you did not lose anything! Just reinstall and restore what you have. All stuff in usr are executables and other read-only stuff as per FSSTND. (except if you had sources in /usr/src or customizations in /usr/local)
Re: ftape format warning!!!
On Mon, 19 Aug 96 16:33 EDT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: tar generates a single Tape ARchive (that's why it is called `tar') and knows nothing about multiple files or positioning of a tape, it just reads or writes from/to a device. mt knows everyting about moving the tape back and forth, but nothing about reading the data off the tape. As you might have guessed, tar and mt in conjunction, does the Just one question... Does taper implicitly call 'mt'? Thanks in advance.
ftape format warning!!!
I had a nasty surprise using ftape to dump my filesystems for archival right before repartitioning my hard drive. I wanted to let people know about this in case they were not already aware. If you plan to dump several filesystems to one tape (that is, more than one session on a tape) you need to erase the tape using mt FIRST!!! Otherwise you will not be able to read any sessions beyond the first. There were only two sessions on my tape. Sadly, the second session contained the /usr filesystem, so I lost everything :( YMMV --- Key fingerprint = D6 A7 D7 8C 92 CB 42 FD 60 D5 62 1C D7 B9 EA 8E Ken Gaugler N6OSK Hybrid Networks, Inc. Cupertino, Calif. URL: www.hybrid.com (home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] URL: users.aimnet.com/~keng) The life of a Repo Man is ALWAYS INTENSE...
