fbackup with no rewind

[guru_6]

Hi,
My question is
I have 200gb capacity cartridge tape and the daily backup is around 60gb. Can I use the same tape to keep the backup with different dates. I am using the fbackup utility. I have read that with fbackup should not use no rewind. If it is possible what will be the command to take different backup on the same tape.

[Leif Halvarsson_2]

Hi,

The man pages for fbackup says that no-rewind devices should NOT be used with fbackup. I don't know if it work at all, if you are interested you can perhaps play with fbackup and the mt command.

But, you should not rely on a such solution for backups. If you want to utilize your cartridges better you should look at a "real" backup program (for ex. DataProtector).

[guru_6]

Hi lief,

what you say about tar or cpio. can we do with that if yes what is the exact command to use?

[Leif Halvarsson_2]

Hi,

As far as I know, it is possible to use no-rewinding devicefiles with tar and cpio. I don't use those commands very often and if I do, I normally use rewinding files but no-rewinding files should also be possible.

Some examples (tar and mt).

Create a tar archive:
tar cvf /dev/rmt/0mn

Rewind the tape:
mt -f /dev/rmt/0mn rew

Forward two files (archives):
mt -f /dev/rmt/0mn fsf 2

Read a tar archive:
tar xvf /dev/rmt/0mn

But, as I said before, this is not a very convinient backup solution.

[Marcus Boehlich]

The difference between tar/cpio and fbackup is, that fbackup sets tapemarks. So when reading the tape you will find the desired file very fast, while tar or cpio have to read the tape until the desired file is found.

Marcus