Memory Lane - Tape Backup for Linux

Remembering the first task given to me, to find a backup solution for server logs. Being given a Redhat 9 box (dont ask why), and a tape drive (stop asking!), I have to choose appropriate tools to get the job done. Yes, you can simply do backup using built-in commands such as tar, cpio, dump etc. But I've never done this before and I'm sort of short of time, so I needed a quick (some people called it dirty) way to do this. After numerous searh engine and reviews, I end up with flexbackup tool.


Why flexbackup? Firstly, it is flexible as it sounds. It's like a middle-man software, where you first decide what kind of archive you want to use (afio, dump, tar, cpio, star, pax, zip, lha, ar, shar) the backup device, logfiles etc. and it will take care the rest. In my case I use 'tar' as the archive type.

So I downloaded the flexbackup tarball and installed it on the machine. The tape drive (Dell PV100T) is connected to the server via SCSI interface. So on RH9, you might want to load certain module for the tape drive to be recognized.

[root@bekap]# insmod /lib/modules/2.4.20-8smp/kernel/drivers/scsi/aic7xxx_old.o
[root@bekap]# insmod /lib/modules/2.4.20-8smp/kernel/drivers/scsi/st.o

Use the mt command to check the status of the device. On linux with one tape drive, the drive may be recognized as /dev/st0(or nst0). As far as I remember, st0 and nst0 are reffering to the same device, with different condition. If you run a command using /dev/nst0, the tape will be rewinded first before the running the command. If /dev/st0 is used, the command will be run at the current location on the tape.

[root@bekap]# whatis mt
mt (1) - control magnetic tape drive operation

[root@bekap]# mt -f /dev/nst0 status
SCSI 2 tape drive:
File number=0, block number=0, partition=0.
Tape block size 0 bytes. Density code 0x25 (DDS-3).
Soft error count since last status=0
General status bits on (41010000):
BOT ONLINE IM_REP_EN

To automate almost everything(what a sys admin always do), I just need to write a simple and sluggish bash script that contains mt command to operate the tape drive, and flexbackup command to backup files/folders.
Let say I need to backup all files in directory called /var/log/msglog.
Here's what I did:

[root@bekap]# cat /usr/local/test/tape-backup-log
#!/bin/bash
# This simple script is to be run for incremental log backup
# by yoe Dec,2005

if [ $# -ne 1 ]; then
echo "Usage: $0 [full] [incremental]"
exit
fi

tape="/dev/nst0"
rew=`mt -f $tape rewind`
flex_config="/etc/flexbackup.nst0"
#rewind the tape

#backup /var/log/msglog
#echo "backup /var/log/msglog"

if [ "$1" = "full" ];
then
echo "backup full for msglog"
echo
$rew
flexbackup -c $flex_config -dir /var/log/msglog -level full &> /dev/null
$rew
echo "Done . Refer log directory for details."

elif [ "$1" = "incremental" ];
then
echo "backup incremental for msglog"
echo
$rew
flexbackup -c $flex_config -dir /var/log/msglog -level incremental &> /dev/null
$rew
echo "Done . Refer log directory for details."
else


If you want to minimize user intervention, than blow it to the cronjob

[root@bekap]# crontab -l
# after inserting new tape, rewind, erase and full backup every 1st of the month at 10:05 am
5 10 1 1-12 * /bin/mt -f /dev/nst0 rewind && /bin/mt -f /dev/nst0 erase && /usr/local/test/tape-backup-log full

# run incremental backup every thursday 11:30 pm.
30 23 * 1-12 4 /usr/local/test/tape-backup-log incremental

Finally make an appropriate schedule for tape replacement.

dirty enough?