Best way to backup SCO Xenix/UNIX

[Ron Srodawa]

In article <1991Apr3.121959.627 at cynic.wimsey.bc.ca> curt at cynic.wimsey.bc.ca (Curt J. Sampson) writes:
>I think that cpio is the best of the standard utilities for backup for
>the following reasons:
>
>  - you can store all of your files on one tape (if they fit)
>  - your backups are completely independent of your partitioning
>    scheme
>  - you can easily choose which files you want to back up
>  - you can easily restore single files (which is good when you have
>    users who are a little trigger-happy with the delete command and
>    come whining to you afterwards :-))

I wholeheartedly agree!  I just went through the grief of restructuring
my system and ended up rebuilding it from scratch because I learned
from the tough teacher--experience--some of these same points.

cpio is indeed the best way to go.  The 2.3.3 version even has the K option
to stop at the end of each tape.

Be sure to add cpio (and lots of other things) to the bootable floppy
you of course will remember to build.  It isn't there by default.
Build two floppies while you're at it..they are indispensible.

Be sure to do the suggested find . rather than find / trick.  I didn't
and couldn't process the cpio tapes I had which is one reason I had to
start all over from scratch.

Cpio is extremely flexible.  If you use the -c option, systems other
than Xenix can process the files.  This is especially useful when
your Xenix box has big brothers down the hall.  I am backing up
to a tapedrive on a machine down the hall with something like..

cpio -oBcK <size> | rcmd <bigbrother> "dd obs=10 > /dev/rmt0"

This even allows reel changes during the backup.  Because my "real"
backups are taken over the network, I plan to, "any day now", take one
set of root backups on floppies just so I can restore without the grief
or rebuilding from the distribution diskettes.  Ron.

-- 
| Ronald J. Srodawa               | Internet: srodawa at vela.oakland.edu      |
| School of Engineering and CS    | UUCP:     srodawa at vela.UUCP             |
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