Path: utzoo!attcan!darkover!nebulus!root
From: root@nebulus.UUCP (Dennis S. Breckenridge)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.att
Subject: Re: How to make a tape 386 Unix boot diskette
Summary: OH well
Keywords: 386 Unix boot
Message-ID: <1990Feb9.210954.2236@nebulus.UUCP>
Date: 9 Feb 90 21:09:54 GMT
References: <323@ohsuhcx.ohsu.edu> <1990Jan29.220409.3932@banzai.PCC.COM> <1990Feb2.185642.22162@eci386.uucp> <1990Feb8.042826.8377@chinet.chi.il.us>
Reply-To: root@nebulus.UUCP (Dennis S. Breckenridge)
Distribution: na
Organization: Alchemy Mindworks, Toronto, Canada
Lines: 36

Oh well, it was inevitable that the question would be asked. 
Probably the easiest way of putting the packages on tape would
be to copy them on, an archive at a time. For instance if
the first package was face (2 disks) cpio BOTH disks into
a /usr/tmp directory then type:

# find . -print | cpio -ocvC32768 > /dev/rmt/c0s0n

Notice the "c0s0n" NO REWIND device. Blow away the /usr/tmp/* stuff 
and repeat until done! Play with a shell script that will install
it in this format. AT&T 3B2 Sysadm will give you some clues on this
type of media. Thier BOOTABLE tape has a boot image, a directory of
whats on the rest of the tape in a magic format (look at sysadm tapepackage
stuff its pretty wild), then each archive on the no-rewind device.

This is not what I have done, it's just a suggestion. 

I set my system up the way I like it, all drivers installed
accounts set up, etc... then:

# cd /
# find . -print | cpio -ocvC32768 > /dev/rmt/c0s0

This way all I have to do is boot disk #1 and cpio 
all the goodies back into the system. 

Don't forget to do an idbuild when the system restores.
"/etc/conf/bin/idbuild"

BTW: -C32768 almost keeps my tape drive streaming, but its much 
faster than the default of 512 bytes. 
-- 
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NAME:     Dennis S. Breckenridge                 UUCP: dennis@nebulus
               EMACS: Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping!
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