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From: keithe@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Keith Ericson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Backing up PC's over a network?
Message-ID: <6183@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM>
Date: 18 Oct 89 19:59:24 GMT
References: <3029@tahoe.unr.edu> <9792@chinet.chi.il.us>
Reply-To: keithe@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Keith Ericson)
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton,  OR.
Lines: 47

In article <9792@chinet.chi.il.us> Les Mikesell writes:

>I just tried something that I didn't expect to work using AT&T's starlan
>DOS server.  I made a link from /dev/rmt/c0s0 (a 125M streaming tape
>in a 386 unix server) to a file named "tape" in my home directory which
>is linked as drive H: to a PC on the network.  From the PC, I used
>GNUtar (compiled for DOS) and from drive C: (local hard disk) executed:
>tar cvf h:tape .
>and it actually created a tape that I could read back under dos or
>unix.  Amazing... and I was just about to waste a month or so cobbling
>up some kind of netbios<->tli connection to do exactly that.

I just tried the same with an AT386Clone (Intel 301-based) running AT&T
SysVR3.2 with Wollongong TCP/IP and their NFS for the server and another
AT386Clone (Everex STEP/25) running DOS3.3 and Sun's PC-NFS.  I got what
Les expected: it didn't work...

Firstly, the first UNIX system had /usr and root as separate file system. so
I couldn't create the link from /usr/me/tape to /dev/rmt/c0s0.  Additionally,
that system didn't have the Wollongong NFS installed  on it, either and
when I tried to install it the X11.3 conflicted with it.  So I decided to
(just?) rebuild the system from scratch with root and usr on the same
filesystem and without the X Windows...

OK, got that done, and install the Wollong TCP/IP and NFS packages.  Make
the link from /usr/me/tape to /dev/rmt/c0s0 (and tapen --> c0s0n).  Turn
back to the DOS/PC-NFS machine to see what I can do.  Not much...  The files
"tape" and "tapen" simply don't exist, EXCEPT that I can't create a file named
tape or tapen in the /usr/me directory, so it kinda' knows it's there.  Dir,
ls, and PC-NFS's "ls" command all fail to report the presence of the "tape"
file.

OK, maybe its 'cuz I'm still running version 3.0 PC-NFS.  Dig out the 3.01
release and do the upgrade.  Finally get that done, except that unfortunately
I had copied - and was using - some (incompatible, as it turns out) 3.0
utilities (in aliases) so I spent the morning re-installing 3.0 AND 3.01
again to get that resolved.

But in the end I'm unable to even SEE my tape file/link from the PC, much
less tar or cpio into it.  I can cpio to a "real" file on the remote
directory (and the UNIX cpio reads it with a "lost file header" error at
the end of the extraction - everything looks ok...)

Anyway, Les has had better luck than I.  Must be that the Starlan is a DOS
server?  Any suggestions?  Is it hopeless?

kEITHe