Wanted: software to do backups/restores via serial port

[Andy S Poling]

In article <29873 at cup.portal.com> thad at cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) writes:
>steveb at shade.ann-arbor.mi.us (Steve Barber) in
><1990May13.001234.23763 at shade.ann-arbor.mi.us> writes:
>
>	Has anyone written any UNIX software to do system backups through a
>	serial port to another computer?  I have an AT&T 3B1 without a tape
>	drive that I'd like to back up to a Sun's disk, and put it on tape
>	from there. 
[...]
>	(I wish SLIP existed on the 3B1...)
>
[...]
>Considering the scarcity of the tape backup subsystem for the UNIXPC, it
>seems to me the best course of action would be to acquire one of the WIB/3B
>Ethernet cards that Bob Slaski is offering at $300; to that you add about
>another $300 for an AUI cable, a ThinNet transceiver, and whatever additional
>RG-58 coax you need ... to connect your 3B1 direct to the SUN.
>
>With the networking subroutines supplied with the WIN/3B (and the assumed
>counterparts on the SUN system), you could conjure up a front-end (and a
>corresponding back-end) to pipe your 3B1's backup thru cpio and through the
>new program, over the net, and even, if you choose, directly to the tape
>drive on the SUN system.  You'd do the opposite for a restore operation.

This is how I back up my 3b1 w/ 40M drive (and ethernet card) - I use tar
(though I suppose cpio would work similiarly).  I pipe the output of tar
into a remsh-ed dd on a networked Ultrix box.  Backs up the entire disk to
the Ultrix box's tape drive in less then 1/2 hour without my supervision.

The only gotcha is that you have to restore not only the foundation set, but
also the WIN3B TCP/IP package before you can restore.  I figure that beats
the hell outta using 100+ floppies.

-Andy

--
Andy Poling                              Internet: andy at gollum.hcf.jhu.edu
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