On Wed, Jul 12, 2006 at 06:31:52PM +0100, Anne Wilson wrote: > On Wednesday 12 July 2006 18:17, Ross Vandegrift wrote: > > Make a holding area, and use dump with a tape size of just slightly > > less than the DVD-R size. Tell dump to generate manifests and quick > > file access data. > > > > Then, all you have to do is burn each dump file to a DVD-R in > > pre-prepared mode (check man growisofs for details on this) and > > burn/store the index/QFA data somewhere. > > > Would you like to amplify this, please?
Sure. Assume that you've got /dev/sda1 that you'd like to backup and you'll store the images in /holding. Then it goes a little something like this: # cd /holding # dump -0uy -A MANIFEST -B 4403200 -Q QFA /dev/sda1 -f disc1,disc2,disc3,... ... (wait for dump to dump the filesystem) # growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/dvd=disc1 ... (burn all the images) The dump command generates files named "disc1", "disc2", etc (you may need more than three depending on your filesystem), as well as a restore index called MANIFEST and quick file access info named QFA. You can do an incremental by changing the "-0" to some higher integer. You may need to twiddle with -B, the size param. I don't remember exactly how large it can be. Then, restoring from DVD looks like this: # cd /destination # restore -A MANIFEST -Q QFA -i -f /dev/dvd ... (restore as usual, inserting discX when asked for volume X) That's all there is to my personal backup system. It has one *major* flaw: backups are not automated the way they are with Amanda. I guess if you're burning to DVD, you have to manually interact anyhow. But as a result, I have only ever done two complete backups of my system... On the other hand, I did use such a backup to recover from a catastrophic disk crash and it worked very well. -- Ross Vandegrift [EMAIL PROTECTED] "The good Christian should beware of mathematicians, and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of Hell." --St. Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram, Book II, xviii, 37