Automated Dumps

[Marc Ph. A. J. St.-Gil]

stubblef at stl-08sima.army.mil (Glenda Stubblefield) writes:

>I need to develop the means to
>do automatic backups, both full and incrementals, through cron during off
>hours.  

I am doing such a thing.  We have 1.7GB of local disk and a 2GB 8mm tape
drive.  We do the incrementals like you do.  On Friday nights we do
unattended SABs.  Here's the scenario:

1. at 1700 Fri. - cron fires off a shutdown -r timed for 0200 Sat.
2. at 0130 Sat. - cron 'touches' a file called .../do_backup
3. at 0200 Sat. - the reboot occurs
4. at 0200+ Sat. - the rc.boot script checks for the .../do_backup file
       If it is there, it fires off a the SAB script and finishes re-booting
       when the script terminates.
5. at about 0300 Sat. - the backup finishes and the system comes the rest of
   the way up.

The only problem I have encountered is that the system can hang waiting
for a dead backup if there is no tape in the drive.  Therefore, check for
the tape being present at the begining of the SAB script.

Marc St.-Gil, UNIX Systems Administrator   mstgil@{sol,vaxa,vaxb}.acs.unt.edu
 University of North Texas  817/565-2324   mstgil@{ponder,solo}.csci.unt.edu
 Academic Computing Services   DISCLAIMER: My employers had no idea I was
 PO Box 13495, Denton TX, 76203            going to say that.