Re: automating tbtape on Informix V5

Dana Lloyd (danal@austin.ibm.com) wrote: : I'm trying to automate the backup of an Informix : database of around 10 GB to files. All I seem to have : is tbtape (some external reasons involved) If you are looking for onarchive it is not available in version 5. The proper utility is tbtape. : Right now it chokes with an error 32 and : dd: 0511-065 Requested a write of 4096 bytes, but : wrote on 3584. : Anyway, I want to be able to automatically, i.e. not : have to hit enter etc, and be able to redirect each : section of the backup to a different file. So far I : don't see how to do it. Does someone have a modified : version of tbtape or a good wrapper that would allow : me to detect end-of-tape/file so that I can execute a : shell script to point to another file then tell : tbtape to carry on etc? Your best bet is to get a bigger tape drive. The official "party line" from Informix is not to support squirrelly backup solutions. There are a couple of DLT tape drives which will support 10GB, or 20GB if you use the on-board compression. They cost a couple of thousand dollars (cheap.) The unofficial "personal opinion" is that you don't want to take chances with your archives. Automating the process is easy and pretty safe (though not really supported; see the c.d.i. archives for several examples) but kludging together several files, plus the logs, sounds shaky to me. Be careful, Clem ____________________________________________________________ | Clem Akins clema@informix.com | | International Support formerly | | Informix Software, Inc cwakins@leia.alloys.rmc.com| | Menlo Park, CA Standard Disclaimers Apply | |___________________________________________________________|