On Thursday 15 January 2004 09:03 pm, Josh Trutwin wrote: > Is it ok if the system is running while > doing a full system backup to tape? Mostly. But use the -X option to feed tar a list of locations not to backup. Some good canidates might be: /dev /proc /tmp /var/tmp The other caveot is live databases. Unless you have a speciallized script you pretty much have to shut down the database before backing it up. If you have an Oracle database especially that can't be shutdown then its time to go call your friendly Veritas rep. Oh yeah, one other thing I forgot. For completeness, the IDE tape devices are /dev/ht? (rewinding) and /dev/nht? (non-rewinding). Also there are severall good packages out there for doing backups that are much more robust than a tar wrapper but not as costly as Veritas. Frankly though most of my clients are currently very complex (Veritas) or very simple (tar + mt) so I've kind've lost track of what the alternatives are currently. I'd like to here what archiving programs everyone is using that fills in that middle ground. -- Ben Maas - Technology Architect Open Technology Systems, LLC ----------------------------------------------------------- eMail: bmaas at open-techsys.com Web: http://www.open-techsys.com Phone: 952.448.3121 Fax: 952.448.4944 Cell: 612.743.3674 _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list