[rescue] Backup question

[Sheldon T. Hall]

"Eric Hall" <jester_123 at yahoo.com> said ...

> I'm running a SS Classic as a router/firewall/DNS server, etc. It has
> a minimal Sol 7 install with only a / partition. The little beastie
> recently ate it's hard drive for dinner, and I spent the better part
> of a day re-installing Solaris, Ipfilter, editing all the
> configuration files, basically re-doing everything from scratch. While
> this did help me brush up on my system admin skills, I'd like to avoid
> this hassle in the future.
>
> I have an 8mm tape drive and tapes, so I'd like to make a one tape
> easy restore backup. What is the best way to go? ufsdump? Thank you
> for your input.

I have a very similar setup, and use ufsdump to an HP DDS drive for back up.

When my machine ate _its_ hard drive, I discovered that some of the backup
tapes weren't actually readable.  I did a bit of cleaning of the tape drive,
instituted a more frequent backup plan, and have become more careful about
testing the backup tapes for integrity.

About the only advice I might add is to arrange things so that no one
partition (or filesystem)is larger than your backup device; that way you can
make level 0 dumps without having to change tapes in mid dump.

-Shel