dbraun@i50s7.ira.uka.de (12/14/90)
I'm looking for a possibility to backup my PC disks directly to the backup systems (streamer, exabyte) of our sun stations. We are using PCNFS 3.0.1 and network cards from 3COm and Western digital. Who has some experience with this problem. Is LifeLine, a program mentioned in the PC NFS manual a solution? Is there any public domain possibility. Thank you for proposals. Please mail to my email address, as i've some technical problems in reading News regularly. Thanks in advance .db. (Dieter Braun) Institut fuer Mikrorechner und Automation University of Karlsruhe, Germany
efeustel@tiger1.Prime.COM (Ed Feustel) (12/14/90)
Lifeline permits the specification of the device to which the tar'd file system will be backed up or from which it will be restored. In most cases it is a disk file but it could conceivably be a tape.
koontz@cam.nist.gov (John E. Koontz X5180) (12/15/90)
In article <90.348.08:58:51@ira.uka.de>, dbraun@i50s7.ira.uka.de writes: > ... [for making backups from PC to file server with PC/NFS] ... > Is LifeLine, a program mentioned in the PC NFS manual a solution? It is reasonable for one or two technicians, but not reasonable for larger numbers of non-technical users. If you back up to disk, you will have problem managing the large volume of tar files with multiple users. If you back up to tape, then someone will have to mount/insert the tapes - either the end user, or the sysop of the file server. Think about the mechanics of either! Recovery is messy in either case, especially if you have backed the tar files off the server to tape. Moreso if the user has been making incremental dumps. There is nothing to locate the current version of an arbitrary file. The user interface is batch files plus tar - not up to the standards of the lamest PC-only backup system. On the other hand, for suitable kinds and numbers of users it sure beats swapping diskettes, and it is rather cheaper than giving everyone their own tape drive. I have used it successfully to back up everything and then recover everything when swapping hard drives in a system. I wouldn't buy Lifeline for the backup feature, though. The email is what justifies its existence. It isn't perfect, but it is a much better effort than the backup and fairly reasonable for the average user. It is a bit misleading of Sun to market PC-NFS and Lifeline separately. You need both to get the equivalent of most other TCP/IP products for PCs.
indra@brahms.amd.com (Indra Singhal) (12/17/90)
dbraun@i50s7.ira.uka.de writes: >I'm looking for a possibility to backup my PC disks directly to >the backup systems (streamer, exabyte) of our sun stations. >We are using PCNFS 3.0.1 and network cards from 3COm and Western >digital. Who has some experience with this problem. >Is LifeLine, a program mentioned in the PC NFS manual a solution? >Is there any public domain possibility. If you really want to manage PC backups on a per file basis and not a per disk basis as Lifeline's Backup system allows, it may be worth looking into Legato systems' Networker product. We use the product for our UNIX system backups and they have a PC module that is a client to the UNIX backup server. Networker can write to a multitude of different media. Personally, I have not tried the PC product but have seen it demonstrated. For the UNIX systems, Networker is perhaps the most versaatile and easy to use solution. I can't find their number from where I am now. Let me know if you are interested. They are located in Mountain View, CA. I am just a satisfied user. No business connection. -- iNDRA | indra@amd.com or {ames apple uunet}!amd!indra | (Indra Singhal) (408) 749-5445; Advanced Micro Devices | MS 167; Box 3453; 901, Thompson Pl., Sunnyvale, CA 94088
csb@gdwb.oz.au (Craig Bishop) (12/18/90)
dbraun@i50s7.ira.uka.de writes: >Is LifeLine, a program mentioned in the PC NFS manual a solution? >Is there any public domain possibility. We use Lifeline backup and it works very well. We also backup all of our PC's (about 50) to an exabyte using lifeline in combination with some software we wrote which allocated the exabyte tape drive to the PC's which wish to backup. Below is the README file for the pcbackup utilities we have written. When time permits we were going to release the PC and Unix scripts to the network. ------------------- Pcbackup README --------------------------- PCBACK.BAT runs on the PC and is in control of the remote tape drive via Lifeline tar. However the remote server needs to be in control of who gets the tape drive to avoid contention issues. PCBACK does the following: 1. sets the time from the server (not needed but nice to do!) 2. gets the name of the server and the tape drive (allows this to be centrally controlled for all PCs and to split PCs across two or more servers and/or tape drives) 3. logout the user so that backup runs as nobody and most network drives are dismounted 4. mount a special exported tmp area for handshaking (access control to tape unit) 5. checks whether Homebase is loaded (if %HB% set), check whether %PC% is set (set in autoexec.bat) and checks syntax of command. Should be PCBACK drive1 drive2 drive3 ... e.g. PCBACK C D E to backup drives c,d,e 6. creates flagfile %PC%.rdy to tell Unix shell script that PC is waiting for backup. Shell script (hereafter called pcbackup) sorts through the PCs waiting for backup according to creation time of various %PC%.rdy files 7. wait for returned flagfile %PC%.go (check for its existence every 30 seconds - at the end of the sleep check if we exitted sleep via ^C) - also check if shell script is running (pcbackup.run should exist) 8. while waiting display the PC which is currently backing up (if any) 9. create %PC%.drive (eg PC67.c) and the %PC%.chk (eg PC67.chk) flagfiles 10. execute the tar command 11. do points 7 to 10 for every other drive Note: NFSDRIVE is set to Q (a networked drive) at the beginning of the file and reset to C (where the real \NFS directory is kept). Also since this runs as nobody and uses rsh, you must have a nobody usercode with its .rhosts containing all your PC's on your server. MAKE SURE YOU READ ALL THE COMMENTS ESPECIALLY IN THE SHELLSCRIPT. THIS WILL GIVE YOU A GOOD IDEA ON THE HANDSHAKING INVOLVED. IF A PC TIMES OUT (IE START THE HANDSHAKING AND THEN HANGS) THE WHOLE BACKUP IS ABORTED. THIS IS BECAUSE THE UNIX SERVER CANNOT DETERMINE IF ANY DATA HAS BEEN WRITTEN TO THE TAPE. IT THEREFORE CANNOT REPOSITION WITH GREAT CONFIDENCE. (POSSIBLY IT COULD KEEP TRACK OF FILES WRITTEN AND REWIND THEN SPACE FORWARD BUT IT DOESN`T HAPPEN THAT OFTEN THAT IT IS A PROBLEM.) Addenda: BACKUP.DB is not used since we specify the host and device in the actual tar command and use defaults for anything else. This includes using standard block size and the standard dd utility on the Unix host. Remember that pcbackup.sh running on the Unix host only controls who gets the tape drive. It doesn't (in fact can`t) enforce it either. It does not talk directly to the tar program and handles no data. It waits for the PC to create PC??.RDY. It creates a sorted list (by time) of the PCs ready to backup. Starting with the top of the list it creates PC??.GO (?? is the first one). PCBACK.BAT responds with PC??.CHK and PC??.drive and then starts backing up the first drive. When finished this drive it creates PC??.FIN if it has another drive. It waits for PC??.go again etc. At the finish of all drives it creates PC??.END. The Unix host (pcbackup.sh) then resorts all the PC??.RDY files and start at the top of the list. tar from within PCBACK.BAT invokes dd on the Unix host and transfers the data. This part of the procedure is totally independent of anything we have written. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Craig Bishop Geelong & District Water Board Phone: +61 52 262506 61-67 Ryrie St Geelong Fax: +61 52 218236 Victoria 3220 Australia -- Craig Bishop Geelong & District Water Board Phone: +61 52 262506 61-67 Ryrie St Geelong Fax: +61 52 218236 Victoria 3220 Australia
rjf@gdwb.oz.au (Rex Foord) (12/19/90)
dbraun@i50s7.ira.uka.de writes: >I'm looking for a possibility to backup my PC disks directly to >the backup systems (streamer, exabyte) of our sun stations. >We are using PCNFS 3.0.1 and network cards from 3COm and Western >digital. Who has some experience with this problem. >Is LifeLine, a program mentioned in the PC NFS manual a solution? We are doing just this at our site. We are using PCNFS 3.0.1 and 3c503 network cards and Lifeline. We are using a script on the UNIX system to comtrol allocation of the tape device to various PC's that request to be backed up. A system of semaphores files is used to communicate between the UNIX script and the PC's If you are interested I can get our network administrator to send full details. Rex Foord Geelong and District Water Board (Australia) rjf@gdwb.OZ.AU
news@trlluna.trl.oz (USENET News System) (01/03/91)
drive netmounted using PC-NFS. The user interface is good and the whole exercise is quite fast as back ups go. XTP-G compresses all files into its own archive format & they can then be recovered individually, in tagged groups or en masse. Up on the Unix host you end up with one massive file which, of course can be put onto a backup tape and reloaded onto the host as needed. From: craick@titan.trl.oz (John Craick) Path: titan!craick XTP-G has a lot of useful facilities which allow partial backups of various sorts by date, by subdirectory etc, For those with this back up problem and access to a Unix host, this method's worth a look I'd suggest. It's the least painful backup procedure I've found & XTP-G is quite cheap. John Craick Telecom Research Melbourne Oz
andy@mks.com (Andy Toy) (01/03/91)
Something like rdump and rrestore would be just what the doctor
ordered. Do these exist for DOS and PC-NFS?
--
Andy Toy, Mortice Kern Systems Inc., Internet: andy@mks.com
35 King Street North, Waterloo, UUCP: uunet!watmath!mks!andy
Ontario, CANADA N2J 2W9 Phone: 519-884-2251 FAX: 519-884-8861