[comp.unix.aux] Backup & Misc

MATLEVAN@EKU.BITNET (Jerry LeVan) (10/05/90)

Good Evening Netters,

Still can't get tar to create a multitape backup of a filesystem,
tcb always croaks on the first write.

Is the following possible?
  use dump.bsd to /dev/rmt/tc to copy a sysv file system.
  reformat the disk to a ufs.
  use restore to recover the files from the tape (without
  remaking the partition back into a sysv filesystem.
Is tcb usable/needed/recommended for use with dump.bsd?

Jerry
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Jerry LeVan                           | Phone:(606)-622-1931              |
| Department of Computer Science        |                                   |
| Eastern Kentucky University           | Email:matlevan@eku.bitnet         |
| Richmond Ky 40475                     |                                   |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|      "The series converges so slowly that it actually diverges."          |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

rmtodd@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu (Richard Michael Todd) (10/05/90)

MATLEVAN@EKU.BITNET (Jerry LeVan) writes:
>Is the following possible?
>  use dump.bsd to /dev/rmt/tc to copy a sysv file system.
>  reformat the disk to a ufs.
>  use restore to recover the files from the tape (without
>  remaking the partition back into a sysv filesystem.

  Well, modulo the difference that I did it with /dev/rmt/teac4n (using Tony
Cooper's beta TEAC tape driver and a TEAC 150M tape drive), that's exactly 
what I did when upgrading my /u filesystem to UFS.  No problems.  You
do have to make sure that you've told dump.bsd correctly about the expected
length of the tape, as it apparently determines when it needs a new tape
by counting how much it has written, not by detecting the end of the tape.  
(I believe dump.bsd has an option for spec'ing the tape length correctly for
the Apple tape drive.   Yes, it does, option 'c').  

>Is tcb usable/needed/recommended for use with dump.bsd?

I don't think so.  The dump.bsd man page says that the 'c' option tells it
to do writes only in 8K chunks, which seems to be the main function of 
tcb...
-- 
Richard Todd   rmtodd@chinet.chi.il.us  or  rmtodd@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu  
"Never re-invent the wheel unnecessarily; yours may have corners."-henry@utzoo

jim@jagmac2.gsfc.nasa.gov (Jim Jagielski) (10/05/90)

In article <1990Oct5.035047.32209@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu> rmtodd@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu (Richard Michael Todd) writes:
>MATLEVAN@EKU.BITNET (Jerry LeVan) writes:
>>Is the following possible?
>>  use dump.bsd to /dev/rmt/tc to copy a sysv file system.
>>  reformat the disk to a ufs.
>>  use restore to recover the files from the tape (without
>>  remaking the partition back into a sysv filesystem.
>
>  Well, modulo the difference that I did it with /dev/rmt/teac4n (using Tony
>Cooper's beta TEAC tape driver and a TEAC 150M tape drive), that's exactly 
>what I did when upgrading my /u filesystem to UFS.  No problems.
>

As I recall, dump.bsd and restore (when used in the "full" mode) also copy
the SuperBlock information, so if a restore -r (or whatever the flag is, I
don't use dump/restore) is done, SuperBlock info is also restored. One of the
upshots of this is that your new filesystem must be the same size as the old
one.

One can use cpio instead (assuming all will fit on 1 tape):

	$ cd /usr2
	$ find . -print | cpio -ov | tcb > /dev/rmt/tc1
	$ [now do newfs stuff to create BSD file system]
	$ [dp and pname too if required ]
	$ [and mount it of course where it was before: assume /usr2]
	$ cd /usr2
	$ tcb < /dev/rmt/tc1 | cpio -idmuv

(the above should be run as root to maintain old permissions)
--
=======================================================================
#include <std/disclaimer.h>
                                 =:^)
           Jim Jagielski                    NASA/GSFC, Code 711.1
     jim@jagmac2.gsfc.nasa.gov               Greenbelt, MD 20771

"Kilimanjaro is a pretty tricky climb. Most of it's up, until you reach
 the very, very top, and then it tends to slope away rather sharply."

rmtodd@servalan.uucp (Richard Todd) (10/06/90)

jim@jagmac2.gsfc.nasa.gov (Jim Jagielski) writes:

>As I recall, dump.bsd and restore (when used in the "full" mode) also copy
>the SuperBlock information, so if a restore -r (or whatever the flag is, I
>don't use dump/restore) is done, SuperBlock info is also restored. One of the
>upshots of this is that your new filesystem must be the same size as the old
>one.

  Nope, I'm sorry, you didn't Beat the Reaper. 

  Restore is smart enough to automatically handle restoring onto
filesystems with different numbers of inodes or disk blocks, as long as
there are enough inodes/blocks to hold all the files and data that were
dumped originally.  You can restore onto a filesystem larger or smaller
than the original, as long as you have enough room to do it.  BSD-style
dump and restore have historically been the recommended way to save/restore
one's data when enlarging or shrinking a filesystem.  I've done it twice to
enlarge my /u partition at the expense of the MacOS partition on my
external drive, and at uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu, the Univ. of Oklahoma's
Encore Multimax, when they need to shift some disk space from one
filesystem to another (which they typically do once a year or so, whenever
some FSes are real full and others are real empty or whenever they get a
new disk drive), they do full dump/restores to change filesystem sizes.  

>One can use cpio instead (assuming all will fit on 1 tape):

Well, aside from the fact that cpio doesn't save the access time, nor does
it correctly handle "holey" files such as are created by dbm, the original
poster was complaining that his filesystem *wouldn't* fit on one tape...  

--
Richard Todd	rmtodd@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu  rmtodd@chinet.chi.il.us
	rmtodd@servalan.uucp

jim@jagmac2.gsfc.nasa.gov (Jim Jagielski) (10/09/90)

In article <1990Oct5.212803.11873@servalan.uucp> rmtodd@servalan.uucp (Richard Todd) writes:
>jim@jagmac2.gsfc.nasa.gov (Jim Jagielski) writes:
>
>>As I recall, dump.bsd and restore (when used in the "full" mode) also copy
>>the SuperBlock information, so if a restore -r (or whatever the flag is, I
>>don't use dump/restore) is done, SuperBlock info is also restored. One of the
>>upshots of this is that your new filesystem must be the same size as the old
>>one.
>
>  Nope, I'm sorry, you didn't Beat the Reaper. 
>
>  Restore is smart enough to automatically handle restoring onto
>filesystems with different numbers of inodes or disk blocks


I seem to recall somewhere in the documentation for 1.1, that one of the
considerations when using dump and restore was that the restored backup
had to be the same size file system that was originally dumped. In other
words, if your file system was orginally 40 megs and you wanted to "increase"
it to 80 megs, the documentation suggested NOT using dump/restore since the
file system sizes were different and it would not work. (they also mentioned
in there information about the SB being copied also)

Now I don't know if this is true or not, but it WAS in the 1.1 documentation
set... I recall this because around that time I had upgraded from an 80 MB
disk to a 170 one and wanted to: 1) increase the root FS size from 55MB (which
was about the size of 1.1) to 70MB as well as 2) make /usr it's own FS.

Now maybe the documentation was wrong, or maybe dump/restore was changed/fixed
to circumvent this (heck, I remember the days of nightly "dd" backups!) under
2.0. I simply felt the need to relay what I read, even if it IS/WAS wrong :)
--
=======================================================================
#include <std/disclaimer.h>
                                 =:^)
           Jim Jagielski                    NASA/GSFC, Code 711.1
     jim@jagmac2.gsfc.nasa.gov               Greenbelt, MD 20771

"Kilimanjaro is a pretty tricky climb. Most of it's up, until you reach
 the very, very top, and then it tends to slope away rather sharply."

rmtodd@servalan.uucp (Richard Todd) (10/10/90)

jim@jagmac2.gsfc.nasa.gov (Jim Jagielski) writes:

>I seem to recall somewhere in the documentation for 1.1, that one of the
>considerations when using dump and restore was that the restored backup
>had to be the same size file system that was originally dumped. In other
>words, if your file system was orginally 40 megs and you wanted to "increase"
>it to 80 megs, the documentation suggested NOT using dump/restore since the
>file system sizes were different and it would not work. (they also mentioned
>in there information about the SB being copied also)

  Well, the documentation was wrong, then.  I don't have an A/UX 1.1
manual set, but I do have a set of A/UX 1.0 manuals.  (The 1.0 manuals
did document dump/restore, even though those programs apparently
weren't finished in time for the 1.0 release!)  Anyway, the 1.0 man
page for restore says:
     "A dumpfs(1M) followed by a mkfs and a restore is used to change the size
of a file system." 
  For some reason, this helpful statement isn't in the online A/UX 2.0 manuals.
It obviously should be.  Sigh.  
	
>Now maybe the documentation was wrong, or maybe dump/restore was changed/fixed
>to circumvent this (heck, I remember the days of nightly "dd" backups!) under
>2.0. I simply felt the need to relay what I read, even if it IS/WAS wrong :)

  Quite understandable--it isn't your fault your manual lied to you...

  My understanding is that dump/restore have worked this way ever since, at 
the least, some early BSD release.  The deal is that while dump has to
and does grovel through the raw disk, restore doesn't do so--all the restoring
of files is done through normal file I/O calls.  Thus restore doesn't control
the specific allocation of a file to a specific inode or block number, so
restore doesn't really care if the filesystem it's restoring onto has different
parameters than the one originally dumped.  (I recall hearing that V7 restor 
(note the spelling) *did* write to the raw fs, but I don't know for sure; in
any case, I don't think any version of BSD restore did.) 
--
Richard Todd	rmtodd@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu  rmtodd@chinet.chi.il.us
	rmtodd@servalan.uucp
"Cancelling a posted message means posting a cancel message."-Maarten Litmaath

jim@jagmac2.gsfc.nasa.gov (Jim Jagielski) (10/10/90)

In article <1990Oct10.044533.26811@servalan.uucp> rmtodd@servalan.uucp (Richard Todd) writes:
>jim@jagmac2.gsfc.nasa.gov (Jim Jagielski) writes:
>
>>   *my comments about dump in 1.1 manuals
>
>  Well, the documentation was wrong, then.  I don't have an A/UX 1.1
>manual set, but I do have a set of A/UX 1.0 manuals.  (The 1.0 manuals
>did document dump/restore, even though those programs apparently
>weren't finished in time for the 1.0 release!)  Anyway, the 1.0 man
>page for restore says:
>     "A dumpfs(1M) followed by a mkfs and a restore is used to change the size
>of a file system." 


Also, as I recall, the 1.1 manual set didn't include a page (either hardcopy
or printed) for dumb.bsd. I think that the documentation refered to dumpfs,
so a name change happened somewhere along the line.

The file system size/dump/restore comment was made in some obscure place
in the manual set, most probably in the Local Sys. Admin Guide... I wish I
had kept my 1.1 manual, but I barely have space enuff for my 2.0 manuals :)
--
=======================================================================
#include <std/disclaimer.h>
                                 =:^)
           Jim Jagielski                    NASA/GSFC, Code 711.1
     jim@jagmac2.gsfc.nasa.gov               Greenbelt, MD 20771

"Kilimanjaro is a pretty tricky climb. Most of it's up, until you reach
 the very, very top, and then it tends to slope away rather sharply."