[CentOS] Help with dump/restore

Les Mikesell lesmikesell at gmail.com
Fri Dec 28 16:16:46 UTC 2007


Scott Ehrlich wrote:
> So I recently installed an Overland Arcvault 12 tape library on a server 
> to back up /var/log/ and /home.
[...]
> Trying to adapt the knowledge to a tape library...
> 
> /sbin/dump -0 -v -z2 -f /dev/nst0 /var/log
> /sbin/dump -0u -v -z2 -f /dev/nst0 /home
> 
> I have a cron job that dumps the results to /var/log/dump.log, and a 
> review of the log file claims all went well.  Now for the restore...
> 
> I just tried playing with different options of restore, but could not 
> successfully restore anything.   I ensured I was in a scratch area so as 
> to hopefully not overwrite current files.
> 
> What is the proper procedure for dumping and restoring now?  Should I be 
> dumping to /dev/nst0/dump?    What restore commands would I use to 
> recall a file?
> 
> I'd like to keep things as simple as possible - people have suggested 
> legato and amanda, but for now, I would think/hope dump and restore 
> would work.

First you need to determine if your problem is with dump or the tape 
drive.  Dump tends to be unhappy if the filesystem changes during the 
run, so you might be better off using tar.  Also, some tape drives are 
picky about the block size used in writing and reading.  You can use the 
mt command to check/set the block size for the tape, and both dump and 
tar have block size options that you can set to match.

-- 
    Les Mikesell
     lesmikesell at gmail.com




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