UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I am taking a class all about linux. Where where asked to find the best backup program. We never did agree and are system was set up with scp because some one already knew how to use it and thus the quickest to set up. Great example of legacy support.


However, on my computer i do not have a tape driver, but with to make use of a 20gig scsi

ones that we taled about in class where

cfengine
amanda
rsync
rdist
dd
tar | scp
raid
dump
star

I have been trying to set up amanda, but it requires a tap drive and am having a problem making it back up to the harddrive as a tape drive. I would like the archieving ability of amanda, but maybe a little simplier.

any suggestions.

This is a very subjective question. There are MANY determining factors that you must address before you can say which backup is better than the other.

If you are looking for free backup solutions, like the ones you have listed, it depends on what you are using it for. Some of those are better than others for certain types of work.


I may be a little off here, but this is close.

CPIO is very good about copying tree structure and copying data although it is somewhat antiquated. But many people still use it.

TAR is very good for compressing and storing data to tape and for moving data from one box to another.

DD works well for RAW copying from one disk to another and additionally for creating empty files to "reserve" disk space.

I am not familiar with the others except for dump and rdist.

The real answer is "it depends".