[SAGE] OS X backup to CD-R?

["Peter M. Jansson" <petej@clickvision.com>]

Backup on OS X is a problem at the moment.  The Unix backup tools (dump, 
tar) won't backup the resource forks of files on HFS+ filesystems, while 
there are very few reliable Mac tools that will get all of the Unix system 
files (/lib, /bin, /usr/bin) which are normally obscured from the view of 
the Mac user.  The two options of which I'm aware that will work are:

- Create a disk image of your files using the DiskCopy program, and then 
burn this file to CD/R (this will not work incredibly well if the image 
exceeds the size of a CD/R, but if you only put stuff in your home 
directory, and your home directory fits on a CD/R, this is a good option)
- Use the commercial backup tool Retrospect from Dantz Development (Dantz 
has been working on this tool to make sure it gets all the data from all 
the files)

This article:
   http://archive.develooper.com/macosx@perl.org/msg00948.html
addresses the salient points of backing up under Mac OS X.  It's slightly 
out-of-date, but it's correct with regard to usage of hfspax and ditto 
(for ditto, make sure you use the -rsrcFork option).

Sources for ditto and hfspax may be available from 
http://www.opensource.apple.com (free registration required), but I couldn'
t get to the CVS archive right now to verify that.

Unfortunately, the bottom line is that at this stage in Mac OS X's life, 
it doesn't come with a good backup solution.

Pete.

On Wednesday, February 6, 2002, at 05:00 AM, Pat Wilson wrote:

> I've got this very nice new iceBook running Mac OS X.  It would seem the 
> obvious
> thing to back it up to the built-in CD/R (I'm thinking "multi-tape", and
> burning when it's time to change media).  I can't, however, get /sbin/dump
> to talk to the CD/R device.
>
> Has anyone gotten this to work?  Failing that, how _are_ you backing up?
> I've found something called hfspax, but am not really sure it'll do (and
> it's a <shudder> binary)...