[Sussex] Back up software.

[John Crowhurst]

> 1. Can I just set up a tape drive, maybe smbmount the NT shares and
> tar them to tape?

This should be easy, once you have the NT shares mounted, you can tar them
straight to tape.

The SCSI device for a tape drive is /dev/st0.

You may need to rewind the tape using the mt command:

# mt -f /dev/st0 rewind
# tar cvf /dev/st0 /path/to/tar

Note: you can't use bzip2 (or gzip) to compress the files to tape. You
could run bzip2 (or gzip) before running the tar to reduce the file sizes.

Once you have finished, you will probably need to rewind, and verify the
tape contents:

# mt -f /dev/st0 rewind
# tar tvf /dev/st0

To eject:
# mt -f /dev/st0 rewoffl

It is advisable to run retention on a new tape (like some people do with
their VCRs with new tapes - fast forward to end of tape, then rewind) You
can do this easily by:

# mt -f /dev/st0 retention

> 2 Are there any issues re: drivers for standard HP tape drives?

If its a SCSI based tape drive, then it will be covered under SCSI tape
drivers.

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FyreMoon
Under the moon, the chaos dragon flies.