Hello,

I have been trying out the dump command to backup my server to tape. I learned from some tutorials that to append backups onto one tape to use the non-rewinding device name nst0.

Here is the command I use for incrementals:

dump -1uaf /dev/nst0 /files

In my crontab I have that running 6 nights out of the week with each new day having a new number, so the next incremental would be:

dump -2uaf /dev/nst0 /files

and so on.

My problem is, how do I restore these tapes now? Each backup is appended onto the end of the last one, so it is effectively making a new block for the new backup right? I tried using the restore command but fail to see anywhere that I can put what block to look into and to restore.

If anyone can help I would appreciate it. thanks.

Read the man pages for mt. The mt command manipulates the tape i.e. rewind or fast forward to a particular file.

http://linux.die.net/man/1/mt

ex: mt -f /dev/nst0 fsf 1 Will forward tape to the next file.