Whatcha Do During Backups?

[Mark Verber]

What do I do when backups are running?  I sleep.  Like most people
these days I do backups onto a Exebyte tape drive which requires no
operator intervention.  cron starts a process around 3am that
determines what needs to be backup on my network, and then blasts it
to the tape server.  Through careful planning I can still fit each
nights save-sets onto a single tape.  I should have a stacker before I
grow beyond a single tape, so I will be able to continue to sleep
through my backups.  Full saves are done pretty much the same way
except that the backup script reboots the machine, and /etc/rc has
been changed to look for /do_backups, If this file exists it is exec
early in the boot cycle (after I config my network, before anything
that touches the diskis started).  When I backup is finished, the back
continues in the process of coming live again.

Mark Verber / Ohio State Physics / Computing Services
	The most difficult issues in building large networks today are
	level 8 & 9 of the protocol stack: politics and religion.

	RMS: a religious evanglist who doesn't care if you are converted
	or not.