dump/restore and external hard drive

[John Abreau]

By default, dump wants to write to a tape device, e.g. /dev/st0.
To dump to the external disk, you used the -f option to indicate
the file to write to, correct? I.e.

    dump -0f /media/BigDisk/dumpfile-level0
    dump -9f /media/BigDisk/dumpfile-level9

So your BigDisk contains two files, dumpfile-level0 and
dumpfile-level9, each containing the corresponding dump image.

To restore from this, you'd first restore from the level 0 image,
and then restore from the level 9 image on top of the already
restored level 0 files. I.e.

    restore -f /media/BigDisk/dumpfile-level0
    restore -f /media/BigDisk/dumpfile-level9

If you're only restoring a subset of files, and you know in
advance that everything you want to restore is entirely
within one of the dump images, you can restore just from
that one image; otherwise, you want to restore the identical
subset from both dump images, starting with the level 0
image and overlaying with the level 9 image.


On 10/5/07, Scott Ehrlich <scott at mit.edu> wrote:
> I've got a 1 TB external hard drive that I performed a level 0 dump to,
> with compression, then a subsequent backup at normal level  (9?).
>
> I attempted to at least view the dump with restore, and keep getting a
> /dev/tape isn't found.
>
> If I want to perform a reliable backup to any medium, in this case an
> external hard drive, I want to reliably be able to view and access the
> contents.   I reviewed  restore's man page but nothing was very obvious.
>
> I could just as easily tar the directory of choice to back up then gzip
> it, but incrementals would obviously be helpful in catching only changes
> and saving space, and having several tar balls can add up quickly, unless
> I offload them to DVD...
>
> Insights/ideas welcome.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Scott
>
> --
> This message has been scanned for viruses and
> dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
> believed to be clean.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at blu.org
> http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>


-- 
John Abreau / Executive Director, Boston Linux & Unix
GnuPG KeyID: 0xD5C7B5D9 / Email: abreauj at gmail.com
GnuPG FP: 72 FB 39 4F 3C 3B D6 5B E0 C8 5A 6E F1 2C BE 99

-- 
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.