... and Backups on the SGI

[Thomas P. Mitchell]

In article <31330 at bu-cs.BU.EDU> eap at bu-it.bu.edu (Eric A. Pearce) writes:
>
>  We have several IRIS 4D's here and I would like to do the following:
>
      
>  2.  I would like to use bsd dump/restore (and rdump/rrestore) for
>      backups.  Has anybody done this?  

Caution if you are going to port dump/restore ---
dump/restore tools work under the kernel file system.  There
must be exact knowledge about the file system within the code.
The extent file system used in Irix is close but not equal to the BSD
fast file system.

>      Other options I am considering are tar and GNU tar, since the
>      other systems would be able to read the tapes.  GNU tar is
>      looking pretty attractive, since it supports full and incremental 
>      backups/restores and will run on all of our systems.  
>  
>  If I missed something in the documentation, please feel free to
>  point this out.   With the exception of the above, the IRIS was very easy
>  to set up in a networked environment.  
>

There are two schools of thought with regard to backup
tools.  One is the BSD sneak under the FS for speed
dump/restore, and the other that works with and on top of
the file system like tar, cpio, bru.

Each has its advantages.  I (not SGI) would be curious how
well gnu_tar works for you.  Are you considering nfs
mounting the usr file systems, each in turn on one central
system for backups?

-------------
Thomas P. Mitchell  (mitch at sgi.com)
Rainbows -- The best (well second best) reason for windows.