> This may be doable via a script that would run 'vos dump', sometimes
> as a partial (incremental), and then store each volume file into
> UniTree (creating UniTree directories based on the date). This could
> probably be a cron job that would run automatically at night.
>
> Does anyone out there run a similar AFS backup system? Anyone have a
> script like this that they could share?
We have our own homebrew backup system and we use "vos dump" to get
the volume data from AFS. Unforunately, we are not prepared to share
this system with the world. (It is not documented well, and it my not
be portable to other architectures.) However, I do have a few hints
that might be useful whenever you interface "vos dump" and "vos restore"
to any backup system.
We had freqent dump failures when using our backup system with "vos dump".
It turns out that "vos dump" talks to the volserver using Rx and the Rx
connection would break whenever stdout was blocked for any length of time.
I wrote a buffering program that I call the "cartoon hose". It normally
read and writes buffers very quickly. However, when stdout it blocked,
then it slowly expands (reads more buffers). When stdout is released it
write twice as much as it reads until it clears the backlog.
The opposite problem occurs when using "vos restore". A long time may
elapse before the data for the volume comes off the tape. In this case
the "vos restore" must not be started before the data is available.
You can pick up these two interface programs from
/afs/cs.wisc.edu/public/afs-tools/backup. These two programs have been
in use here for over a year. They are also very portable.
...Tim
Tim Theisen Associate Researcher
Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Department of Computer Sciences
UUCP: uwvax!tim University of Wisconsin-Madison
Phone: (608)262-0438 1210 West Dayton Street
FAX: (608)262-9777 Madison, WI 53706-1685
