From owner-freebsd-questions Fri Nov 2 10: 4:21 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mta1x04.coxmail.com (cm-fe1.coxmail.com [206.157.231.20]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0DC6F37B401 for ; Fri, 2 Nov 2001 10:04:19 -0800 (PST) Received: from boole.cornpropst.net ([209.249.161.105]) by mta1x04.coxmail.com (InterMail vK.4.03.04.01 201-232-130-101 license c271d808eeaddc9d652e7c0b1383e8cc) with ESMTP id <20011102180710.EJRW22114.mta1x04@boole.cornpropst.net>; Fri, 2 Nov 2001 13:07:10 -0500 Received: (from tsc@localhost) by boole.cornpropst.net (8.11.6/8.11.6) id fA2I47189289; Fri, 2 Nov 2001 13:04:07 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from tsc) Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001 13:04:07 -0500 From: "Trevor S. Cornpropst" To: Chris Fedde Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Assistance creating a bootable restore tape Message-ID: <20011102130407.E67917@boole.cornpropst.net> References: <20011101234056.D67917@boole.cornpropst.net> <200111020624.fA26O5N07536@fedde.littleton.co.us> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <200111020624.fA26O5N07536@fedde.littleton.co.us>; from chris@fedde.littleton.co.us on Thu, Nov 01, 2001 at 11:24:05PM -0700 Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Thu, Nov 01, 2001 at 11:24:05PM -0700, Chris Fedde wrote: > On Thu, 1 Nov 2001 23:40:56 -0500 "Trevor S. Cornpropst" wrote: > +------------------ > | We have considered an automated install from a custom CDROM > | distribution but this is problematic due to different server > | configurations and the effort required to maintain multiple > | restore CDs. > +------------------ > > I'm not sure that I understand how tape would be different than the CDROM. > Do you want to be able to create a bootable recovery system in the field? Yes, the idea is to be able to create a bootable recovery system in the field customized to the particular server. We would be able to boot from tape by specifying the device in the SCSI BIOS, assuming we can get a boot block on the tape, etc. > > +------------------ > | I used to work on HP-UX systems that had a utility to create bootable > | restore tapes but, I no longer have an available system to study. > +------------------ > > I did tape recovery systems on motorola based HPUX 300 series > workstations circa 1988 or so. IIRC it was quite painful. I'm > not sure that modern PC bioses can even boot from tape. > > If I was planning a remote appliance configuration today, I'd shy > away from tape for anything "operational". I'd consider always > booting from CDROM for / and /usr. Then use a scheme of normal > and union mounts to allow customizations to be written "over" the > underlying image. I'd plan to use tape for archival storage only. > Thanks for your input. Trevor > -- > Chris Fedde > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message