[PLUG] Re: Network Backups

[John Cirillo]

> John Cirillo <cirillo@purdue.edu> writes:
> 
>> Hi,
>> 
>> I am attempting/planning to migrate our local network backups off of the
>> NT
>> machine onto a linux machine. We have mostly NT machines, a couple of
>> unix-like machines and five Macs. So far I have tried experimentally using
>> smbtar to grab the shares from the NT machines, and it works fine. I'm not
>> worried about backing up the unix machines as I can use NFS on them. But
>> the
>> real puzzle is how to back up those Macs? The NT Server has some
>> functionality that allows it to mount Mac shares using Net Use, same as NT
>> shares. But I don't find anything I can use on Linux. I tried the afpfs
>> thing, but it wants and can't find any router (My NT machine has an
>> appletalk
>> router running!) so that package doesn't seem to work (it's in pre-alpha
>> stage anyway... Anyone else got it working?) So, I figured I must not be
>> the
>> only one at Purdue with such a situation. There must be Macs and unix
>> machines all over the place. How are network administrators addressing
>> this? 
> 
> This isn't a solution, but it may help you along your way.
> There is a program called TkChooser that will, supposedly, I haven't
> yet tried it, let you mount AppleShare volumes under UNIX.  I suppose
> you could then backup that mount point.
> 
> I'll try it out at home and let you know what I find out.
> 
> In the meantime, you can do your own testing.  Here's the URL:
> http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~etgold/software/tkchooser2/
> 
> Charles Fultz
> fultz

Hi Charles,

I've used tkchooser before. It is a kind of front-end for samba and afpfs. The
author of it wanted to make it work for appleshares too, but he couldn't get
afpfs working either. 
Fortunately, last night I got afpfs working and succesfully mounted a
networked mac volume on linux. What a thrill. I could read files on it.
Didn't try writing but that's not important.
The afpfs code is supposedly unstable but I will  keep using it on my
experimental machine and see if it crashes and burns anything.

The secret to getting afpfs working is that a router needs to be specified in
the netatalk atalkd.conf file, either an existing router or let the linux box
become one with the -router command. Anyone wanting the details let me know.

Meanwhile I'd be interested in hearing anyone else's Mac backup solutions
using linux/other unices. 

Thanks for checking into this. 
----------------------------------
John Cirillo
E-Mail: cirillo@purdue.edu