> On Jan 8, 2008, at 6:29 AM, Douglas A. Tutty wrote: > > > >I know that the FAQ says to just use dump to make backups but what if > >you want a tape of a specific group of files for archiving? When last > >did the dump format change? Since it reads the filesystem directly, > >I'd > >assume that its filesystem-specific. What if you want portablility > >across OSs and file system types? Is there any more-or-less universal > >format? > > tar(1) with gzip(1). > > >Re Amanda: for me, its likely too complex since I only have two boxes > >and one is a desktop only. Right now it runs its own backup script to > >create a tarball then the main box rsyncs that over to it. > > see? works fine. > > Amanda basically does that, without using ssh and without some kind of > security (this may have changed recently). It also keeps a reference > database for which file is stored on which tape, and a index on each > tape of the contents. >
Well, right now, I just do full backups. Incrementals get rather tedius. Especially since they find new files but they don't notice a file that has been deleted. So I don't need a list of what files are in which tarball but rather just what date it is. A simple log: this tape, this date, this tarball. > All in all, pretty smart design. The best thing out of the features > AMANDA provides is this tidbit: everything is in gtar to keep things > as a standard. As long as the archive format that it tells tar to use is compatible with whatever version of tar you go to use in 20 years; but that's another topic. Thanks, Doug.
