3 Installation

Contents of this section

You have to be root to install tbackup, as the installation process creates entries in directories that are owned by root.

3.1 Software you need for running tbackup

For running tbackup, you need to have the following additional software installed on your Linux system:

The afio archiver program can be found at various ftp sites:

nic.funet.fi    : /pub/OS/Linux/util/backup/afio-2.4.2.tgz
sunsite.unc.edu : /pub/Linux/system/Backup/afio-2.4.2.tgz
ftp.win.tue.nl  : /pub/linux/tbackup/afio-2.4.2.tgz

setfdprm seems to be included with all newer Linux distributions, I don't know when it first appeared.

cmp is a small shell tool for comparing files, which is usually installed by default, but not in the Debian distribution, where it is part of the optional `GNU diffutils' package.

3.2 Installation procedure

  1. If you have no older tbackup version installed, go to 2. If you do have an older tbackup version installed, remove it first by typing
    rm -r /usr/lib/tbackup
    Existing tbackup directory set configuration and log files in /etc/tbackup can still be used with the new tbackup version. Existing .dea and .arg configuration files in /etc/tbackup can still be used.
  2. cd to the / directory and untar the tbackup archive:
    cd /
    tar zxvf ...../tbackup-0.9.tgz
    
    The files in the archive unpack to the directory /usr/lib/tbackup. The subdirectory /usr/lib/tbackup/examples contains some sample configuration files, the directory /usr/lib/tbackup/bin contains various shell scripts and programs that are used internally by tbackup. If you don't like to have the tbackup files under /usr/lib, you can move them somewhere else and put a symlink in /usr/lib, e.g.
    cd /usr/lib 
    mv tbackup /usr/local/lib
    ln -s /usr/local/lib/tbackup tbackup
    
  3. cd to /usr/lib/tbackup
  4. Type make, this will compile some C programs that tbackup uses internally.
  5. Edit the Makefile if you want you want to change the target directories for the installation script you will run in next installation step. You can also configure the installation script to make file copies instead of symbolic links.
  6. Type make check. This command checks if you have all for auxiliary programs needed for running tbackup installed, and will warn you about any omissions.
  7. Type make install. The installation script will do the following things automatically:
    1. It will make symbolic links in /usr/bin to the tbackup, trestore, tguess, tlist, and tdir commands in /usr/lib/tbackup.
    2. It will make symbolic links in /usr/man/cat1 to provide a manual page for tbackup (which will contain the ASCII version of this document) and a manual page for the tdir command.
    3. It will create the configuration directory /etc/tbackup if it doesn't already exist, then put the files Config and Compr.ext in /etc/tbackup unless these files already exist. If a pre-V0.9 Config file exists some new fields are added. It also puts some standard .arg files in /etc/tbackup if they don't already exist.
    4. It will create a directory ˜/idx (idx under roots home directory) for storage of index files, unless you have one already. You can move this directory later if you want to store the index files somewhere else, see Section reconfig-idx (Selective restores, subsection on Creating index files).
  8. The make install script will ask you about your floppy drive configuration. You will also be asked if you want to disable the extended floppy density option. Extended floppy densities fit more data on a floppy by going outside the `factory specifications' of the floppies and drives. For example, on 3.5" DD floppies, the normal double density format uses 80 tracks and 9 sectors per track, the `extended double density' format uses 82 tracks and 10 sectors per track, which fits 820 Kb. on the floppy. Not all floppies and/or floppy drives are able to go outside their `factory specifications' and hold extra data. Also, due to limitations in the Linux kernel, reading and writing 1.7 Mb. on 3.5" HD floppies is extremely slow Note: This was written in 1994, the limitation may be gone by now. You need to have the setfdprm program to use extended densities. See Section exdens (Extended floppy densities) for more information. If you disable the extended floppy densities option tbackup will not bother you with questions about extended densities when running. If you change your mind about using extended densities later, you can delete the file /etc/tbackup/Floppy and run make install again.
  9. If you have a tape drive and want to use it with tbackup, you need to set the tape device name and optionally some other things in the /etc/tbackup/Config file. The configuration instructions are in Section tapes (Tape drives).

3.3 Ensuring that tbackup has free space for temporary files

Tbackup needs free space on your harddisk to store temporary files. If you're backing up to floppy disks, tbackup needs space to store two floppy contents. (E.g. 2.88Mb if you're backing up to 1.44Mb disks.) This space is used to store the disk image that is currently being written to floppy, and as a working area for preparing the next part of the archive.

If there is insufficient free space, tbackup will refuse to run.

By default, tbackup creates a directory bulkdir under /tmp for temporary storage of floppy contents. If you don't have much free space on the filesystem carrying /tmp you may want to locate bulkdir on another partition.

Suppose you have two partitions and the df command shows:

#df
Filesystem         1024-blocks  Used Available Capacity Mounted on
/dev/hda1              54315   53028     1287     98%   /
/dev/hda2              44004   32562    11442     74%   /usr
#
(/tmp is on /dev/hda1 in this case).

In this situation, you will probably want to use the /usr filesystem for temporary storage. To do this, create a directory /usr/tmp, and edit the file /etc/tbackup/Config. Change the line

export bulkdir=/tmp/bulkdir
to
export bulkdir=/usr/tmp/bulkdir
There is no need create the directory bulkdir under /usr/tmp, this directory is created and deleted automatically by tbackup.

In addition to the bulkdir for large temporary files, tbackup always needs some 15Kb free in /tmp (on the /tmp partition) to create small temporary files. This should pose no problem as far as disk space requirements are concerned. However, beware of running a program that completely fills the /tmp partition during a backup or a restore: if it can't make small files under /tmp tbackup may fail or crash in unexpected ways.

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