Lots of different ideas, some of which I had considered, others I didn't
know about. Thanks to (in no particular order) :-
Peter Allen (peter.allen@aeat.co.uk)
Daniel Lorenzini (lorenzd@gcm.com)
Bob Fulwiler (bobf@psa.pencom.com)
Cat Okita (cat@uunet.ca)
Jason Keltz (cs911089@red.ariel.cs.yorku.ca)
Mark Phillips (itumro@lux.levels.unisa.edu.au)
Stuart Beck (stuart@cs.adelaide.edu.au)
The responses were of two kinds, customisable front-ends to native
dumpsters, and scripts running from "cron".
One package which looks like doing the biz is a free software package
called AMANDA (Advanced Maryland Automatic Network Disk Archiver)
available from the ftp site : ftp.cs.emd.edu (/pub/amanda). I am
currently working on installing and running this to see if it meets the
bill. On first impressions this seems to be the one to use, but I can't
get it to actually dump anything. It goes through the motions, but fails
as it starts to dump. Oh well..... another list to subscribe to . I can
tell people I get 150e-mails a day now!
Other solutions were to use scripts running from "cron" which
synchronised the backups. I'll try this if I can't get Amanda to work.
These people also kindly offered to supply the scripts (If only other
lists were as kind to fledglings!), which I will probably take them up
on if the two solutions (Amanda and Jason Keltz's) don't pan out.
A third solution is a front-end to ufsdump written by Jason Keltz
(cs911089@red.ariel.cs.yorku.ca) which can be obtained at
http://www.cs.yorku.ca/~jas/sbs. If you're reading Jason the URL is
inaccessible from my machine! Check the permissions on the files - I
can't get the top level either (~jas/). I'll try it when I can get it!
Finally it was suggested I should get a Jukebox to handle the load. This
is something I was considering anyway, but I have to first raise the
funds to be able to purchase it. Until then I will probably go with the
Amanda package, if I can get it to dump!
Thanks again for all the prompt replies, and also to anyone who has
replied but I haven't mentioned, the replies will no doubt still be in
transit!
Cheers
Mike
-- "We've been looking for home and keep finding the sandpit, Maybe if we look for the sandpit we'll find home." - Winnie The Pooh