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From: fnf@riscokid.UUCP (Fred Fish)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: Questions bru-ing
Message-ID: <14372@mcdphx.phx.mcd.mot.com>
Date: 10 Jan 91 14:29:38 GMT
References: <9012220452.AA17500@karron.med.nyu.edu> <1990Dec22.204946.28873@odin.corp.sgi.com>
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Reply-To: fnf@riscokid.UUCP (Fred Fish)
Organization: Motorola Microcomputer Division, Tempe, Az.
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In article <1990Dec22.204946.28873@odin.corp.sgi.com> olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson) writes:
>I'm not that it matters too much.  Since the cron script can only use the
>one tape cartridge, the best you can do is to backup one tapes worth.
>bru (or tar, or cpio) will then ask for the next tape.  Since there
>is no controlling tty, the prompt will fail and the backup aborts.
>You still have the first tapes worth of backup.

You can use the brutalk program to communicate with background versions
of bru that have no controlling terminal.  This is a short program
which EST provides in source form to all customers (not sure if SGI
passes it on).  Bru is told to direct all queries, and receive replies,
from a pair of fifos.  Brutalk hangs out at the other end and communicates
with the user when required.

>If you have multiple
>drives it would be useful to have a way to specify to bru that it
>should switch to a subsequent drive without reading from /dev/tty,

This is called device chaining.  You simply use multiple -f options.
I.E.

	bru -f /dev/rmt/tp0 -f /dev/rmt/tp1 -f /dev/rmt/tp2

and bru automatically switches to the next drive when required.

-Fred