[KLUG Members] Re: Backup solution

[Scott Thurmond]

Thanks, Bryan.  I'll give these options a shot and see what works for me.

-Scott

-----Original Message-----
From: members-admin@kalamazoolinux.org
[mailto:members-admin@kalamazoolinux.org]On Behalf Of Bryan-TheBS-Smith
Sent: Friday, December 07, 2001 8:12 AM
To: members@kalamazoolinux.org
Subject: [KLUG Members] Re: Backup solution


Scott Thurmond wrote:
> What I want to do is keep generations of the files - maybe a weeks worth.

Actually, version control (RCS/CVS) is ideal for that.  Then you just
backup your version control files and you have a full history.  ;-PPP

> "Get to the point...."  ok, ok.  I am looking for command line tools to
> prepare the CD for writing and write the data.  Each night I want to roll
> off the oldest backup ad add the current day's data.  Can you help me?

MKISOFS+CDRECORD

mkisofs is the command for mastering an ISO9660 (.iso) image.  cdrecord
is the command for writing it.  98% of the CD mastering/recording GUIs
for Linux will actually call these two programs in the background.

MKISOFS (and MKHYBRID)

mkisofs can write both 8.3 (default) or 32 character filenames for
ISO9660, and supports both Joliet (Windows) and RockRidge (UNIX, Apple)
extensions for OS-specific meta-data (long names, permissions, etc...). 
mkhybrid is a variant of mkisofs that adds extended Apple support
including HFS, ISO9660-HFS hybrid and ISO9660-RockRidge extended (for
Apple).

CDRECORD (and IDE-SCSI EMULATION)

cdrecord prefers SCSI devices, but using the ide-scsi emulation driver,
you can usually use your IDE CD-R[W] as a SCSI device.  You must reserve
your device at boot time so the ide-cd driver doesn't grab it.  You do
this with "hdc=ide-scsi" (where hdc is your CD device) appended to the
Linux boot command.  After that, you use your IDE CD-ROM as sr0 (or
scd0), and sg0 for burning (CD-R).  There is also a way to use CD-RW to
with the UDF filesystem (the filesystem for newer CD-RW and all DVDs,
Linux includes a full driver, unlike Windows), but I have never tried it
with a non-SCSI drive (I have SCSI CD-RW and DVD-RAM drives that work
perfectly).

BACK2CD SCRIPT

I have a backup script that compresses files individually, and then
masters an .iso image with them in the same heirarchy on the CD as on
your HD.  Unfortunately, it doesn't handle spaces in directory names
yet.  If you are interested, it is here:
http://smithconcepts.com/files/scripts/back2cd.tcsh

WHY TAR.GZ IS REDUNDANT (and MAKES TAPE/CD BACKUP WORSE)

FYI, you normally don't want to use tar, because ISO9660 is an archiving
format in itself -- using tar is "double archiving", not only adding to
browse/restore time, but if you use GZip with it, you'll actually put
your entire backup set at the risk of a single bit error.  For more info
on that, I wrote these following discussions recently:
http://lists.leap-cf.org/pipermail/leaplist/2001-December/016140.html
http://lists.leap-cf.org/pipermail/leaplist/2001-December/016206.html

MONDO RESCUE -- THE _ULTIMATE_ CD BACKUP SOLUTION

If you are looking for a backup solution that can make a bootable CD,
and span CDs, I just discovered "Mondo Rescue" the other day.  This
thing rocks!  I just wrote a review the other day ...
http://lists.leap-cf.org/pipermail/leaplist/2001-December/016207.html
http://lists.leap-cf.org/pipermail/leaplist/2001-December/016208.html

-- TheBS

-- 
Bryan "TheBS" Smith    mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org   chat:thebs413
Engineer  AbsoluteValue Systems, Inc.  http://www.linux-wlan.org
President    SmithConcepts, Inc.    http://www.SmithConcepts.com
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