Re: [aclug-L] What happened in the 20 APR 1999 meeting....

[John Goerzen <jgoerzen@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"spiff" <spiff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

Thanks, great job!  Just a few additions.

> Tar cons:
> 
> isn't terribly "user friendly" if you what to pick out a single file on a
> tape (unless you know what it is), one first has to index the tape, then
> rewind, then go to the file

This makes it take up to twice as long to restore a single file with
tar than with dump.

[dump:]

> better restoration interface
> faster and more reliable

I would say it has a more powerful scheduling system less susceptible
to human error. 

> Taper:
> didn't talk much about it other then it has a 4 gig limit

Yeah, sorry about that.  Basically, I had one day to prepare the talk
instead of the usual week or two so it wasn't quite as coherent as I
would have liked :-(

Anyway, taper is a ncurses (full-screen) program with an interface
similar to mc or Norton.  Its idea is ease of learning.

> Ok, here is the beef on tar:
> to do a basic backup the command is as follows to back up the / :
> tar -cvSpf /dev/(insert tape device or whatever) /

where "tape device" is something like nst0.

> tar -cSpf - /(path) | tar -xvSpf --C /(destination)
                                    ^
just one hyphen there

> Now, if you all really, really want, I can post the stuff about the passwd
> and shadow files as well as the lilo.conf information, but I think this is
> enough to digest for now.  Feel free to add to it.