@UNREVISED
GNU tar is distributed along with the scripts which the Free
Software Foundation uses for performing backups. There is no corresponding
scripts available yet for doing restoration of files. Even if there is
a good chance those scripts may be satisfying to you, they are not the
only scripts or methods available for doing backups and restore. You may
well create your own, or use more sophisticated packages dedicated to
that purpose.
Some users are enthusiastic about Amanda (The Advanced Maryland
Automatic Network Disk Archiver), a backup system developed by James
da Silva `jds@cs.umd.edu' and available on many Unix systems.
This is free software, and it is available at these places:
http://www.cs.umd.edu/projects/amanda/amanda.html ftp://ftp.cs.umd.edu/pub/amanda
Here is a possible plan for a future documentation about the backuping
scripts which are provided within the GNU tar distribution.
.* dumps
. + what are dumps
. + different levels of dumps
. - full dump = dump everything
. - level 1, level 2 dumps etc, -
A level n dump dumps everything changed since the last level
n-1 dump (?)
. + how to use scripts for dumps (ie, the concept)
. - scripts to run after editing backup specs (details)
. + Backup Specs, what is it.
. - how to customize
. - actual text of script [/sp/dump/backup-specs]
. + Problems
. - rsh doesn't work
. - rtape isn't installed
. - (others?)
. + the --incremental option of tar
. + tapes
. - write protection
. - types of media
. : different sizes and types, useful for different things
. - files and tape marks
one tape mark between files, two at end.
. - positioning the tape
MT writes two at end of write,
backspaces over one when writing again.
This chapter documents both the provided FSF scripts and tar
options which are more specific to usage as a backup tool.
To back up a file system means to create archives that contain all the files in that file system. Those archives can then be used to restore any or all of those files (for instance if a disk crashes or a file is accidently deleted). File system backups are also called dumps.
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