[comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc] Backup Over TCP/IP?

scott@blueeyes.kines.uiuc.edu (scott) (03/02/91)

O Great Net.Wizards:

We have a couple of DEC VAXen which are equipped with a very nice high
capacity tape backup drive. We will also (soon) have LAN for our DOS
machines running under Netware '386. We're also connected to our campus 
TCP/IP backbone. We'll eventually have the VAXen on the TCP/IP net as
well. Since everything will be connected together into one big happy
network (ha ha), it sure would be nice to be able to use the tape drive
hanging off the VAXen to back up our PC file servers also. The obvious
questions: Can it be done? If it can, what will we need, and how do we do
it? 

Any personal experiences or pointers to information would be greatly 
appreciated.

kludge@grissom.larc.nasa.gov ( Scott Dorsey) (03/02/91)

In article <1991Mar1.170232.22655@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> scott@blueeyes.kines.uiuc.edu (scott) writes:
>network (ha ha), it sure would be nice to be able to use the tape drive
>hanging off the VAXen to back up our PC file servers also. The obvious
>questions: Can it be done? If it can, what will we need, and how do we do
>it? 

The easiest way to do it is with the rmt protocol.  You need an rmt program
for the PC servers.  There is one with one of the PD tcp/ip packages (I think
NCSA Telnet, but I can't be sure).  I know it runs on a straight MS-DOS
machine, and I don't know what your PC file servers are running, so I can't
be sure that this program will work.
   If your vaxen are running a Unix variant you are free and easy.  If your
machine is running VMS, though, you have a different problem because VMS does
not come with its own tcp/ip set, so you must make sure that whatever tcp/ip 
package you are using supports rmt (I know Multinet does, I know UCX doesn't, 
and I suspect CMU/Tek doesn't either). If it doesn't you will probably need 
to replace it.  Ehud says to buy Multinet and he will flame me if I ever
recommend anything else.
   I do warn you that this will eat up your network bandwidth very quickly.
--scott

fks@vaxeline.ftp.com (Frances Selkirk) (03/02/91)

I'm not sure what Netware might have for remote back-up, but the usual
utility in TCP/IP packages is tar. Tar uses the Berkeley UNIX command
rmt to back up files to tape. Both our PC/TCP and Sun's option package,
LifeLine, have implementations of tar. I'm sure other TCP/IP packages
do, as well. Confirmations, anybody?


-- 

Frances Kirk Selkirk		 info@ftp.com	           (617) 246-0900
FTP Software, Inc.		 26 Princess Street, Wakefield, MA  01880

davecb@yunexus.YorkU.CA (David Collier-Brown) (03/03/91)

| In article <1991Mar1.170232.22655@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> scott@blueeyes.kines.uiuc.edu (scott) writes:
[...]		it sure would be nice to be able to use the tape drive
| hanging off the VAXen to back up our PC file servers also.


kludge@grissom.larc.nasa.gov ( Scott Dorsey) writes:
| The easiest way to do it is with the rmt protocol. 
|    If your vaxen are running a Unix variant you are free and easy.  If your
| tcp/ip package supports rmt (I know Multinet does, I know UCX doesn't, and
| I suspect CMU/Tek doesn't either), you are home free.  If not, you will 
| probably need to replace it.

  A word of warning about VMS: Multinet rmt implicitly does a rewind/unload
after each dump (because VMS ses the unix process exiting..), therefor
ensuring only one dump/tape. You will have to research the Multinet options
carefully: one is applied on the rmt itself, the other is on the device
string...  It's tricky, and I don't remember them clearly.

--dave
-- 
David Collier-Brown,  | davecb@Nexus.YorkU.CA | lethe!dave
72 Abitibi Ave.,      | 
Willowdale, Ontario,  | Even cannibals don't usually eat their
CANADA. 416-223-8968  | friends. 

leo@unipalm.uucp (E.J. Leoni-Smith) (03/05/91)

Real problem is Novell: It won't talk tcp/ip (yeah all right 3.11 will) but
even then will you be able to initiate a dump from a Novell server to the net?
I doubt it.

If you use a PC to do the job you can backup all file systems that the PC is 
logged into by using TCP/IP and Netware concurrently on the PC (Frances at
FTP will tell you how) but that won't backup the Netware operating system.
So you couldn't rebuild the config after a big crash.

It might be enough just toi backup the data tho.


Does the tcp/ip on your vaxen have rmt? If not you will have to fudg3e it.
Using a PC file compression utility and piping it to rsh can work.

Good luck