Tape Drives and backing up
 

hello all,

i have recently installed a linux box as a replacement for an nt box ( because NT broke ) so far its been absolutly fine ( and probably will be for the rest of its function life )

this linux box has taken some hardware from the old NT box, Primarily the hard disks, scsi card, and a scsi tape drive

as far as i can tell the kernel is picking up all the scsi bits, the only problem is i am confused about running the tape drive. Basically i need to be able to backup a large disk ( while its in use if possible ) and save it to tape for desaster recovery. i found some little questions usefull bits here at linux questions one used the mt command ( ?? ), but how would i go about finding out whats on the tape ( indexing ), how could i get a directory of 300+ files on to the tape, and how do i switch on hardware compression?
( sorry i have lots of questions but i would like to know :-) )

Could any one point me in the direction of a decent how-to on tape drives and their operation in linux, and if possible, keeping with the nature of linux, a free back up program like veritas do on windoze.

also is there an RFC or ISO document on how the files and what not are stored on the tape?


the tape drive is a dds3 dat drive, scsi interface and i have a 'wide selection' of tapes to go at!

thanks
antken

Gidday mate,

did you come across this site yet?

Cheers,
Tink

Hello,
That site is just what I needed too....

Have a look at the tape chapter of the SCSI-2.4-HOWTO.

A good backup program to look at is Mondo Rescue.

Glad I could be of some help mate :}

Cheers,
Tink

P.S.: Click that affero button? ;)