[BBLISA] Re: untested backups

[Steven M Jones]

David Allan wrote:
> I'd strongly advise trying this (and everything else) out on a
> non-production server until you get the hang of it.  That might be a
> problem if you don't have a tape unit available, but it's the safest
> path.

Good point Dave. Any same-flavor *nix box should do -- another RedHat
box on your desk, for instance.

If tape drive access is an issue look at rrestore. On most stock RedHat
installations you'll probably have to fiddle with
services/firewall/SElinux/etc, or you could use something akin to this:

hostB# cd /bigdisk/tmp
hostB# ssh hostA dd if=/dev/tape bs=20 | restore rf -

The blocksize ("bs=20" and one block should be 512 bytes) to use
probably depends on your type of tape drive as much as anything else.
Somebody else'll probably chime in on that point.

To use interactive restore ("restore ivf") with a non-local tape drive
you probably need to make rrestore work as I think it needs to rewind
the tape file after file selection.

For that I think you'll need to diddle the boxes until rmt ("Remote MT
protocol" in your /etc/services) works from one to the other. See your
restore man page under discussion of the "-f" flag and see what it says
about "host:/devicefile" access.

--Steve.