🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1727@mrsvr.UUCP> hallett@gemed.ge.com (Jeffrey A. Hallett (414) 548-5163) writes:
>In article <1029@dutrun.UUCP> leo@duttnph.tudelft.nl (Leo Breebaart) writes:
>>I would appreciate the net's help on the following:
>>We have TOPS running on our Sun as well as on some of the Macintoshes.
>>What I want to do is to buy HFS Backup 3.0, and backup the hard disks
>>of these Macintoshes *automatically* to the Sun, i.e. every night at
>>midnight or something like that.
>>I would like to know
>
>It is a  possiblity.  I've  used  DiskFit  to back up  my Mac to a Sun
>directory.  Of course, it is hindered by the speed of the network, but
>can't have everything.
>
>If you want automatic backups,  you will needs something like AutoBack
>or Retrospect which has some timing and auto-reminder features.  Heck,
>you  could probably use   QuickTimer as part  of  QuickKeys  to do the
>backup for you, now that I think about it.

HFS Backup provides the capability of backing up to "any" mounted
volume.  HFS Backup 3.0 comes with HFS Timer INIT for automatically
launching backup sets.  (A backup set is a file which describes the
source folders and files to be backed up, and the destination volume on
which the backup archive is to be stored.)

I'm trying to use the timer with my Mac which is connected to a
GatorBox, which has NFS to Appleshare protocol conversion.  I have set
up my Mac's Appleshare client software to automatically mount a
directory on a Sun as my backup volume.  The Sun directory thus appears
to be an Appleshare volume mounted on my Mac's desktop.

This arrangement works sometimes.  However, HFS Backup uses a hokey
algorithm to determine if the mounted volume is REALLY the same volume
you configured the backup set to back up to.  It compares at the
creation date of the mounted volume to the creation date of the volume
configured into the backup set.  If they don't match, HFS Backup claims
the volume is not mounted.  (This in spite of the fact that the
information about which server the mounted volume resides on is clearly
available; GetInfo can display the information, so HFS Backup could
certainly figure it out.)

The HFS Backup algorithm is perhaps suitable for dealing with floppy
disks which might easily have identical names, but the extra server
information should be used to disambiguate amount mounted volumes when
it is available.

Unfortunately, the creation date of the Appleshare volume is often
modified, either when the GatorBox is re-booted, or at other (seemingly
random) times.  The "fix" to this problem is to manually re-configure
the Backup Set with the new creation date.  This means that the backups
I wanted to run unattended actually require careful monitoring to
verify that they are not failing due to this problem.  For me, I don't
believe that messing with this problem is worth it.

You might have better luck with TOPS-mounted volumes, since their
creation dates don't seem to change so readily.  I have recently had a
problem with TOPS 2.08(beta) and HFS Timer Init, however (The TOPS DA
wouldn't launch under MultiFinder).  I suggest that if you try HFS Backup,
you buy it from somewhere that you can return it to should it not work out.

Jim Prouty
Quantitative Technology Corporation   "A man is not the sum of his possessions."
8700 SW Creekside Place
Beaverton, Oregon   97005
(503)-626-3081      sequent!qtc!jim