[SGVLUG] How to split a "big backup" [that uses tar]

[Dustin]

On Thu, 29 Sep 2005, Emerson, Tom wrote:

> Any (other) suggestions on how to use tar to back up 4gb+ of data?  (I
> could get the details of the actual command he is using, if that would
> help)
> 
> for that matter, any suggestions on a (better?) way to do backups
> altogether?

Yeah.  Try Mondo backup, something I've been tempted to do a "cool tools"  
talk about.  It takes a while to run, but it will archive everything you
point it at (with afio, not tar, so that an error doesn't make the whole
archive unusable), split into media-sized chunks.  I have it burn to a
series of CDs or DVDs, but I think it can write the archives to disk as 
well.

Here is the unusual thing about Mondo archive--the archive discs are 
bootable, so they work properly if you've screwed up so badly the system 
is unbootable.

> ...[yeah, I know of Mike's rsynch method, but this is the same
> guy that can't wait to get rid of the "linux" server and replace it with
> a "windows" server because he is more comfortable with a gui, and the
> previous sysadmin was a dyed-in-the-wool servers-are-always-command-line
> type.]

Oh, well, if the width of the tie is more important than data integrity,
maybe Mondo won't help.  I had to write a tiny little shell script to feed
it the command-line options to make it do exactly what I wanted.

Dustin