Hello again! I think I have done this correctly, but I've never used the dump command before, so there might be a better way. We have a 24G DDS3 tape drive, so I think I don't have to tell the dump program the density, blocksize or length, please let me know if I really should. Below is the relevent part of root's crontab. Does it look ok? Thanks so much, Jennifer p.s. thanks everyone on the Silicon Valley tips - I think I'm going to go for it. #--------------------------------------------------------------------------- # Backups #--------------------------------------------------------------------------- # Every thursday at around midnight 'till 1am do a full backup # of the filesystems /home /usr and /holding -jen 0 0 * * 4 /sbin/dump 0urf /home /dev/nst0 20 0 * * 4 /sbin/dump 0urf /usr /dev/nst0 40 0 * * 4 /sbin/dump 0urf /holding /dev/nst0 # Do the incremental backups of these filesystems on the subsequent days. # The incremental level is a tower of Hanoi so that Friday and Monday night # backups both contain changes since thursday and tuesday and wednesday both # contain changes since Monday. Each is appended to the end of # the non rewind tape. Also done between midnight and 1am. 0 0 * * 5 /sbin/dump 3urf /home /dev/nst0 20 0 * * 5 /sbin/dump 3urf /usr /dev/nst0 40 0 * * 5 /sbin/dump 3urf /holding /dev/nst0 0 0 * * 1 /sbin/dump 2urf /home /dev/nst0 20 0 * * 1 /sbin/dump 2urf /usr /dev/nst0 40 0 * * 1 /sbin/dump 2urf /holding /dev/nst0 0 0 * * 2 /sbin/dump 5urf /home /dev/nst0 20 0 * * 2 /sbin/dump 5urf /usr /dev/nst0 40 0 * * 2 /sbin/dump 5urf /holding /dev/nst0 0 0 * * 3 /sbin/dump 4urf /home /dev/nst0 20 0 * * 3 /sbin/dump 4urf /usr /dev/nst0 40 0 * * 3 /sbin/dump 4urf /holding /dev/nst0 # end backup cron jobs. #--------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ techtalk mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linux.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/techtalk