Transferring dump file to tape?

Viren Patel virenp at mail.utexas.edu
Mon May 16 12:51:16 PDT 2005


> On Mon, May 16, 2005 at 01:52:18PM -0500, Viren Patel
> wrote:
>> > On Mon, May 16, 2005 at 11:36:18AM -0500, Viren Patel
>> > wrote:
>> >> Hello. I am using 'dump' to backup client filesystems
>> to
>> >> a
>> >> disk file on an NFS mounted partition, e.g.
>> >>
>> >>    dump -0aLu -f /bk/var-20050516 /var
>> >>
>> >> Now I'd like to take the backup file (var-200500516)
>> and
>> >> move it to tape (on the NFS server). However I'd like
>> >> the
>> >> tape to have the data just as if it had been created
>> >> directly by 'dump', e.g.
>> >>
>> >>    dump -0aLu -f /dev/nsa0 /var
>> >>
>> >> Any way to do this? I could use rdump/rmt to backup
>> >> directly to the remote tape, but I am doing it this
>> way
>> >> to
>> >> do fast disk-based backups during night and move to
>> >> slower
>> >> tapes during day. For normal restores I can use
>> >> NFS-based
>> >> files but have tapes for single-user-mode type
>> restores.
>> >> Thanks.
>> >
>> > You can use dd to write a file to a device (e.g.
>> tape).
>> >
>> > Kris
>> >
>>
>> I thought so too, but it doesn't work. When I issue
>>
>>    dd if=var-20050516 of=/dev/nsa0
>>
>> I get the following error:
>>
>> dd: /dev/nsa0: Invalid argument
>> 1+0 records in
>> 0+0 records out
>> 0 bytes transferred in 0.000786 secs (0 bytes/sec)
>>
>> Since 'dump' works with /dev/nsa0 I am not sure what the
>> problem is.
>
> You need to specify a block size compatible with your tape
> drive,
> e.g. 32k.
>
> Kris
>


doh! Thanks.

Viren



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