On Wed, 7 Jun 2006, Bowie Bailey wrote: > I am looking for a simple backup program that I can use to backup a > CentOS box to a local tape drive. Hopefully someone here can give me > a recommendation. > > This is what I need: > - Simple launching of manual backups (preferably from the command > line) > - Ability to span tapes for a large backup > - Proper treatment of hardlinked files > - Notification via email or similar when it is ready for the next > tape. > > I tried mondo-rescue, but decided against it after it spent 4 hours > just trying to index the files (it never actually started the backup). > > I am considering Amanda, but the setup is a bit complex and, based on > the docs, the tape spanning capability isn't the best. > > Anyone have any suggestions? I would think that there would be a > simple program out there to backup and restore from tape without all > of the extra scheduling and indexing features. Bacula (www.bacula.org) will do what you want, though wading through the initial configuration process can take a couple hours. Tape spanning is well supported; backups can be scheduled or initiated from the command line; the cli restore process has an interface similar to dump/restore, so it's fairly easy to navigate. We use it to back up CentOS, Debian, Gentoo, and OS X to tape. -- Paul Heinlein <> heinlein at madboa.com <> www.madboa.com