[ale] Bacula

[Dow Hurst]

That correct!  They describe exactly how they write data to the tape.  You'd 
have to write something to read it I guess if the client failed.  But, yes, I 
thought that that was a big plus to have the specs of exactly what was on the 
tape.  I remember a discussion I had with Bob Toxen about writing data to 
tapes.  He was of the opinion that a plain uncompressed tar archive was the 
most useful since it was recoverable even if you were reduced to dd.  The 
tried and true cpio and tar were more favorable to him than the latest highest 
compression stuff.  Verification of the data actually existing on tape and 
checks for dropouts and such was of a higher priority than how much data could 
fit on the tape.  I am currently concerned with our backup process right now 
since we've outgrown the DDS3 tape drive I have.  It takes 10-11 compressed 
xfsdump formatted DDS3 tapes to get our single filesystem of everyone's home 
directories backed up.  Shoving that many tapes at minimum 6 hours per tape 
ends up being practically a week for a single level zero backup.  I need 
another identical tape drive so I can stream to two drives.  Or, better yet, 
four identical drives for four streams.  Tape management and verification for 
nightly incremental backups and weekly full backups are what I want.  We are 
hanging out there too much right now.
Dow


hbbs at comcast.net wrote:
> Dow -
> 
> Did you find out how the files are written on tape?  That is, could I read a tape without having an instance of Bacula?  I ask because I'm always sensitive to having to have anything that's at all special in order to get data off of a tape (as opposed to tar on Linux or BACKUP on VMS).
> 
> - Jeff
> 
>>I looked at the site pages to see what program it uses to actually do the 
>>backup of files.  Seems they wrote their own and it is part of the source. 
>>They post the standards used in defining the data written.  Seems pretty 
>>straightforward to use with examples given.  I plan to try it out sometime 
>>here since xfsdump under IRIX doesn't have verification of tapes built in. 
>>Good luck,
>>Dow
>>
>>
>>Jonathan Glass (IBB) wrote:
>>
>>>http://www.bacula.org
>>>
>>>ONLamp.com has an article on this backup software, and gives it a great
>>>review.  I'm going to test it out this afternoon, and was wondering if
>>>anyone has worked with it yet?  I'd rather learn from someone else's
>>>mistakes, than make them all myself.  :)
>>>
>>>Thanks
>>>
>>>Jonathan Glass
>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>Ale mailing list
>>>Ale at ale.org
>>>http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
>>>
>>
>>-- 
>>__________________________________________________________
>>Dow Hurst                  Office: 770-499-3428            *
>>Systems Support Specialist    Fax: 770-423-6744            *
>>1000 Chastain Rd. Bldg. 12                                 *
>>Chemistry Department SC428  Email:   dhurst at kennesaw.edu   *
>>Kennesaw State University         Dow.Hurst at mindspring.com *
>>Kennesaw, GA 30144                                         *
>>************************************************************
>>This message (including any attachments) contains          *
>>confidential information intended for a specific individual*
>>and purpose, and is protected by law.  If you are not the  *
>>intended recipient, you should delete this message and are *
>>hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, distribution *
>>of this message, or the taking of any action based on it,  *
>>is strictly prohibited.                                    *
>>************************************************************
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>Ale mailing list
>>Ale at ale.org
>>http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> 

-- 
__________________________________________________________
Dow Hurst                  Office: 770-499-3428            *
Systems Support Specialist    Fax: 770-423-6744            *
1000 Chastain Rd. Bldg. 12                                 *
Chemistry Department SC428  Email:   dhurst at kennesaw.edu   *
Kennesaw State University         Dow.Hurst at mindspring.com *
Kennesaw, GA 30144                                         *
************************************************************
This message (including any attachments) contains          *
confidential information intended for a specific individual*
and purpose, and is protected by law.  If you are not the  *
intended recipient, you should delete this message and are *
hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, distribution *
of this message, or the taking of any action based on it,  *
is strictly prohibited.                                    *
************************************************************