[SGVLUG] Mondo backups on "mondo" tape drives

[Jeff Carlson]

Emerson, Tom wrote:
> Any suggestions for programs that "really do understand" that people
> might really use a tape drive, and it just might happen to have
> "sufficient" capacity to back up the world and then some on one
> "reel"?  (or even handle multiple reels without blinking?)
> Ironically, it seems that with the later version of SuSE, they've
> dropped most of the third-party / free programs and only have tar &
> star.  (notable by their absence are the programs "amanda" and
> "taper", and I'm sure if I go back to older versions I'll find other
> backup solutions as well...)

If I were you, I'd install amanda either from source, package from an 
earlier release, or build an RPM of the latest release.  Well, the last 
one assuming you know how to build an RPM, of course.

Heh...  New guy here.  Hey Mike, it's FINALLY working!

> Equally ironic, SuSE's own Yast program has a "system backup" module
> that looks pretty good on the surface, but doesn't seem to
> "understand" that my system really does have a tape drive [I told it
> to write to the file "/dev/st0", and it created "/dev/01_st0.tar" as
> a physical file in the /dev hierarchy... go figure...]

Wow.  What else can I say?  I'm in awe.

> I've used Arkiea in the past [with this tape drive, in fact], but
> while I suppose I could extract the "free" version from the redhat
> 5.x series of install disks (where I must have gotten it in the first
> place), I've since found out it has a HUGE security hole --
> appearently the program doesn't authenticate the sender(*) (and runs
> as root), so if you find the arkiea network "client" on a system, you
> can claim to be a "server" and write any arbitrary file anywhere on
> the client system...

Ok, well forgive me for being new and not having met you before, but one 
thing I missed here is, is this for a corporate network or your home? 
If it's home, and you're the only user, or maybe 1+wife, I wouldn't 
seriously worry about that hole.  Corporate is a whole different storry. 
  Also, flapping in the breeze is a different story as well.

The last solution is the most basic:

# Day 1
touch /etc/backups/stage0
tar cvf /dev/st0 /
# Day 2
touch /etc/backups/stage1
tar cvf /dev/st0 `find / -newer /etc/backups stage0`
...

It will use your tape drive properly, but yeah, hope you don't have to 
find one file out of a ten stage backup.