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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!simtel!news.kei.com!news.mathworks.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.sprintlink.net!news.cloud9.net!cloud9.net!tls From: tls@cloud9.net (Thor Lancelot Simon) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Backing up the whole 9 yards...??? Date: 24 Aug 1995 08:32:30 GMT Organization: Cloud 9 Internet, White Plains, New York, USA Lines: 53 Message-ID: <41hdeu$c6@news.cloud9.net> References: <DDHIzE.25r@agora.rdrop.com> <id.SCRM1.LNA@nmti.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: cloud9.net In article <id.SCRM1.LNA@nmti.com>, Peter da Silva <peter@nmti.com> wrote: >In article <DDHIzE.25r@agora.rdrop.com>, >Craig Keenan <sundans@agora.rdrop.com> wrote: >> 1) What is the simplest AND most complete way of backing up an ENTIRE >> filesystem, so that in the case of something disastrous, Joe User would >> at least have a nice mirror of his system xx days ago. Also, what is the >> best way to perform a recovery from ground 0 (maybe a good >> backup-recovery floppy would be good here?? There's an idea...). > >Use "dump" and "restore". A recovery floppy that just includes a kernel and >enough stuff to mount and restore should be easy enough to make. > >DAT is good enough and cheap enough for most people's home systems. I wouldn't >mess with the Colorado type systems. The ones that are big enough to be worth >messing with cost as much as a cheap DAT. Unfortunately, neither DAT nor Exabyte are good enough for many types of production systems, although they're the only thing that's cheap enough for many applications. I don't care *what* kind of MTBF the manufacturers claim -- helical-scan tape drives that _aren't_ run in a clean room, as I suspect the MTBF tests are, show service lifetimes in the single-digit months when subjected to heavy use on a daily basis. If you plan to use DAT for something important, it's essential to buy a spare DLT would be a good answer -- a great answer, really -- but the tapes cost three or four times what DAT tapes cost, even the ones that only store a little bit more data. Unfortunately, I think only 3M makes media in the CompacTape form factor that DLT uses, and ever since the TK50, CompacTape media have cost within a coupla bucks of $30 each. Grrrr... >> percentage of this, or does it usually boil down to each and every user >> tailoring his own backup script? > >AMANDA, from the University of Maryland, by James da Silva (no relation). > >No contest. No kidding. But you really, really, really, REALLY should use the Kerberos support if you're using its network features; IP spoofing makes them extremely dangerous. Unfortunately, a reversed test in the Kerberos code as distributed by UMD causes it to be completely nonfunctional -- you'll need to find and fix this; I haven't worked with Amanda in too long to remember exactly where the problem is, but I did notice it's still there in 2.6. And do remember to use the encryption feature if backing up filesystems with Kerberos srvtabs on them. And to keep the machine with the tape drive _very_ secure, since the security of all your srvtabs will depend on it. -- Thor Lancelot Simon tls@cloud9.net Don't let your mouth write no check that your tail can't cash. --Bo Diddley