Re: [SLUG] Newbie needs help with backup

From: Eben King (eben1@tampabay.rr.com)
Date: Tue Jan 13 2004 - 17:56:03 EST


On Tue, 13 Jan 2004, Charles Marcak wrote:

> I want to backup my home directory, and if I can figure out how, backup
> the whole system. My home directory will fit on one 700Mb CD, but the
> system would require multiple CD's.

You have to decide if you want to be able to read a file out of a backup
with ordinary tool. If you say "no", this gets a lot easier. If you can
arrange to compress the files before you back them up, the backup gets a
lot smaller.

> I wrote a script.

Scripts are already written. You might want to use one if it's
acceptable. A general backup program might work, too.

> mkisofs -o shadowbackup.iso -x /*.tar -x /*.tar.gz -x /*.rpm -R -A -V -v
> /home/shadow

This depends on where $PWD is. Make sure you don't copy dynamic
filesystems, such as /proc . Also, make sure you have room to create the
backup file. I think you need to change all "/"s -> "\"; otherwise that
might exclude *.{tar{,.gz},rpm} in the root directory. Exclude *.tar.bz2,
*.mp3, *.mpg also, as they're pretty incompressible.

> Does cron run if the computer is left at the log on screen with no one
> logged on?

Yes. Be careful running a backup from cron, unless you rotate backups.
You might make a mistake, and then back up that mistake, and be unable to
restore over it, because the mistake has been backed up.

> Is there a way to write a large *.iso file to multiple CD's?

There may be something to split an iso file. (I don't know because I
haven't needed to do it.) That's the difficult part about multisegment
backups -- having them human-readable, and not wasting too much space
means you have to arrange the files carefully.

> Is /home/shadow the proper place for shadowbackup.iso?

If it has plenty of room (more free than the files take up).

> Is /home/shadow the proper place for the script backup.sh?

To get shadowbackup.iso to be made there, you need to "cd" there
beforehand, or do "mkisofs -o /home/shadowbackup/shadowbackup.iso ...".

Check out comp.unix.shell .

-- 
-eben    ebQenW1@EtaRmpTabYayU.rIr.OcoPm    home.tampabay.rr.com/hactar
SAGITTARIUS:  All your friends are laughing behind your back... kill
them.  Take down all those naked pictures of Ernest Borgnine you've got
hanging in your den.  -- Weird Al, _Your Horoscope for Today_

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