[SunRescue] Backup questions...

[MikeHebeldruaga at pmail.net]

Got a question about backing up my home network...

I have the following systems:

3 - Win 9x boxes. (2 Desktops,1 Notebook may be more because of daughter's
Win 9x box.)
2 - SGI Irix 5.3 (Soon to be 6.5.x) Systems
1 - SS2 (Solaris 7)
2 - IPX (NetBSD bnetd servers)
2 - i386 Linux boxes (Mandrake 7.0 - one print server, one learning box)

Those are the systems on the network.

I have the following tape drive:

Exabyte 8mm 8700 drive (7 - 14 gig w/160xl tapes) with a large amount of 5 -
10 gig 8mm tapes.

My question is this:

What would be the best way to back these up?

I know a complete backup is going to have to be manual but I'm not sure what
technology to use. Should I use NFS and Samba and ufsdump?  I don't want to
have to pay for a commercial backup program because they cost WAY too much
unless you're a business.  How hard is it to set up AMANDA to do all these
systems?

"What of donuts?! Whaaaat! - Homer Simpson"

I'm personally thinking about putting the tape drive on the Solaris box and
using NFS and Samba to connect to the others and back them up that way.
Although that leaves me with the ufsdump vs. tar issue.  (I've always had
problems restoring a single file from tar archives.)  Although Lone-Tar
might work OK and that may or may not be too expensive.

What I wouldn't give for a 1tb tape library! ;-)

Any help would be appreciated!

Sincerely,

Mike Hebel