We assume, you have a DAT-cartridge handler with 12 tapes
connected to some machine without the possibility to set a
cartridge directly via commandline interface. So the first
thing to do is set the robot to sequential mode. It is no bad
idea to make this machine "fetch" the backup from the clients
using a small script, that is started via crond. Thus the
first step is to setup this backup server. Unpack the
distribution, run the Install script and select installation
option number 1 for installing and configuring the server side.
The last question to be answered is, whether to run the
serverside configuration program. Answer with yes, cause we
should do this now. The most entries can be accepted as they
are by default. Which device should be used, you must know
yourself, you have for sure already done some archiving with
tar to the connected streamer. The blocksize can be looked
up usually in the man-pages of rmt or tar. Set the parameter
"CartridgeHandler" to 1 and the number of cartridges to 12.
Cause you must use the sequential mode of the robot, clear
the "SetCartridgeCommand", if not already done entering the
parameter number and a single space for the value. Set the
"ChangeCartridgeCommand" to a command, that ejects a tape
from the drive (usually mt -f %d rewoffl - the %d stands for
the configured devicename, just for convenience, that it needs
not to be typed in several times). The UserToInform-parameter
should be set to some administrator or group of administrators,
that should receive important informations. The rest of the para-
meters is quite self-explanatory. Use the online-help, the
CONFIG and the HOWTO.FAQ.DO-DONT, if you don't know, what they
mean. Especially the CONFIG should give valuable hints. Finish
the server configuration entering "ok".
Now make the robot to have cartridge number 1 present inside
the streamer. If you do not want to do this or can't convince
the device to do, what you desire, run the following command:
/the/path/to/server/bin/cartis
Now install the client side on each client, that should do
backups to the server. Again, unpack the distribution and
run the Install script, choosing the installation option
number 3 for client with remote start possibility. Again, all
defaults should be ok, so the last question, whether to run
the clientside configuration program can be confirmed.
Reasonable defaults are present for each parameter. What you
have to configure in any case are the files and directories,
that are to be stored. Furthermore, the startup information
program should be configured to a reasonable command (see above
under "Minimum restore information" for details). If you
are upgrading to a newer version and some of the parameters
are not set, see the client.config (or server.config, respec-
tively) of the actual distribution for defaults, that i consider
sufficient for normal cases. This also might give you better
ideas, what the parameters are good for.
Finally write small scripts starting the backup one after the
other on the clients (the server may off course also be a
client). An example script is provided in the HOWTO.FAQ.DO-DONT
under 2, just replace the list of hosts in the shell-variable
BACKUPCLIENTS. Now add entries to root's crontab-file. Entering
crontab -l > my_crontab
as root writes the actual crontab to the file my_crontab. To
run e.g. a full backup each friday evening and incremental
backups each evening from monday to thursday (all at 8 pm), add
these two lines:
0 20 * * 5 /usr/backup/client/bin/full_backup_cycle
0 20 * * 1-4 /usr/backup/client/bin/incr_backup_cycle
assumed the named programs are the scripts you wrote according
to the above description. Then run the command
crontab my_crontab
to install the modified crontab file.
That's it. Maybe, you want to start the first full backup manually
to see, whether everything is correctly installed and working.
In this case just start the script yourself and watch, what
happens. Especially watch the client- and serverside logfiles in
/path/to/client/var/backup.log and /path/to/server/var/backup.log.
If something goes wrong, also the clientside command
/path/to/client/bin/print_errors
tells more details.
If this introduction together with the rest of the documentation
is not sufficient, please let me know, but PLEASE give me
instructive hints, what you are missing or what should be
clarified.
Albert Fluegel
Aug 23 2000