I'm attempting to write multiple archives to a tape, but I'm missing something...

I thought that this would work:

tar -cf /dev/nst0 /dir1
mt-st -f /dev/nst0 eod
tar -cf /dev/nst0 /dir2
mt-st -f /dev/nst0 rewind

Checking the tape with tar -xvf /dev/nst0, all which appears to be on the tape is the contents of /dir1.

My guess is that I'm either writing the data to the tape incorrectly, or I'm not using tar correctly to check the tape's contents.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

TIA...

tar cf /dev/nst0 /dir1 /dir2 will work fine.

I agree that <tar cf /dev/nst0 /dir1 /dir2> will work, however there is another application which I have in mind it will not work for.

I'm going to be setting up a script and a CRON job to perform incremental backups at regular intervals--to pull this off, I would like to be able to append a tar file to a tape which already contains data.

Why not use a piece of backup software to manage this for you?

http://www.amanda.org

Regards

Why not? 'cause my initial thought was to do it all myself for the learning experience.

I'm curious about Amanda though--before spending the time downloading & building it, do you have any idea if it requires X-Windows? I couldn't find that information after buzzing through the FAQ at sourceforge, and the system which I would be installing it upon is command-line only.

Amanda does not require X nor does it have GUI.
It uses the native system dump or tar to back up
data, and has its own way of managing the index
database.

I'm thinking no need to go to eod since nst0 will not rewind and the tape will be at eod anyway.

I can't prove this since my tape drive is off but the tape will stop and the end of file marker on the first file written to tape.

The status option of mt will tell you how many files were written and the location of the tape drive. When you restore the first file where is the tape location? It should be at the beginning of the second file.

Yep, I've noticed.

A short time ago I was ready for a few trial runs of my first stab at an Amanda configuration, but the untimely death of a HDD put that on hold for a while.

Amanda, at least for me , has quite the learning curve to it. I was really hoping to get my hands on a well-commented sample set-up or two... haven't found one yet, but then I haven't looked in a while either.

-d.

Well I finally tested your commands on my DLT and had similar results.

The only way I could restore the 2nd file from tape was to rewind and then fsf to the second file and then extract.

In summary:
tar -cvf /dev/nst0 /dir1
tar -cvf /dev/st0 /dir2
tar -xvf /dev/st0
mt -f /dev/nst0 fsf
tar -xvf /dev/st0

Hi all
I need advise on how to do multi-volume archive on HP Superstore dat 24 (scsi tape)

My current backup script contains the following

tar cMpf nst0 server_path

The script is on cron job. The cron job is working fine, the problem is it doesn't prompt for to insert the second tape. Do i need to include the tape length or block size. Please advise.

Appreciate if anyone can help.

x2000koh

I do not think tar can span tape.

That's the reason why everyone in Amanda group says you should divide your data into sub-sections so that tar can run them individually.

Hello,

I'm very new to scripting on Linux, so please bear with me. I need two directories backed up to tape every night (no diff or incr needed). I need this to run via cron every night. My understanding is that the script should look like this:

tar -cvf /dev/st0 /dir1 /dir2
mt -st -f /dev/st0 rewind

Is this all that is necessary? I want to make sure that directories within /dir1 and /dir2 are backed up as well. I also need the tar cmd to perform the verify. Finally, I'd like to set this up to run Monday through Friday at 0200. I simply do not know what to do next.

Thanks for your help!