Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!agate!bionet!apple!claris!sts!octopus!vsi1!wyse!bob From: bob@wyse.wyse.com (Bob McGowen Wyse Technology Training) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: validating dumps Message-ID: <2358@wyse.wyse.com> Date: 14 Aug 89 17:55:56 GMT References: <794@Terra.cc.brunel.ac.uk> <1989Aug12.063242.544@algor2.uu.net> Sender: news@wyse.wyse.com Reply-To: bob@wyse.UUCP (Bob McGowen Wyse Technology Training) Organization: Wyse Technology Lines: 30 In article <1989Aug12.063242.544@algor2.uu.net> jeffrey@algor2.UUCP (Jeffrey Kegler) writes: >In article <794@Terra.cc.brunel.ac.uk> linda@cc.brunel.ac.uk (Linda Birmingham) writes: >>I'm trying to validate dump tapes. >> >>I liked someones idea of trying to restore the last file on the tape. >> > >I have always simply reread the tape's table of contents. Does anyone ---deleted--- dump under XENIX (also backup -- hard linked names) puts the table of contents first on the tape, followed by the files. This means that if I read only the table of contents with dumpdir, I do NOT test the integrity of the actual files on the rest of the tape. I do not know if this "feature" is the same on all systems? I have used dd to read the entire tape to be sure it is at least readable but this does nothing in terms of checking the logical structure created by the dump. Restoring the last file on the tape will certainly prove that it is good and may possibly validate the rest of the tape since restore has to find the file, which it would presumably do by reading the tape. Perhaps there is some way to generate a checksum on the disk to compare with a checksum from the tape? Bob McGowan (standard disclaimer, these are my own ...) Customer Education, Wyse Technology, San Jose, CA ..!uunet!wyse!bob bob@wyse.com