On Wed, Aug 15, 2001 at 03:48:02PM -0500, Michael Fraase wrote:
>Cross-platform for me, in this case, means Macs (OS 9.x and OSX) and
>Windows (Windows 2000 Pro and Windows XP) backed up *transparently* by
>software running on Linux.
OS X supports nfs, and to my knowledge, possibly smb as well.

>Transparency is important. I don't want users to have to worry about
>moving files to a server volume or specifying files to be backed up or
>anything else; I just want the entire contents of a computer backed up
>to the tape. In the background. Automatically.
It's not transparency, that's what a backup client does, it's not a *feature*
of the software, that's it's intended function. If you let the fact you have
mac clients out there stop you from creating a good backup scheme, you are
asking to loose data. There's a thousand ways to get stuff from a Mac to
something else, and that something else can (*should*) be a linux/bsd box
acting as a client for amanda or another solid solution.

Are these mobile macs or desktop machines? If they are mobile, you have just
decreased the ease of backups another deviation due to the fact they may not
always be able to access a remote server. (If you are letting them store files
locally, stop it now or you'll never have the "transparency" you want, nor
will you have any reliability in your backups, aside from creating headaches
for yourself.)

>Neither Amanda nor Arcserve seem to have any sort of Mac client
>software, which would rule them out for my application.
Bah... use your current client to backup to an amanda client and backup that
client. Simple. Also, that's what you get for using a Mac. Nobody supports
them.

If you want to get technical and develop a good solution, provide more info
along the lines of the following.

1. File Server.. How do your users store data on the network?
2. What's your current backup solution. Changer/drive, capacity etc.
3. Mobile machines or stationary

Any more questions or concerns, ask away. I hate to see people let their users
control how well they do their job or maintain availability of data.

Thanks,
-- 
Thomas J. Hudak
Systems Administrator
Sistina Software Inc. - www.sistina.com
Phone: 612.638.0500 x.513
Fax: 612.379.3952
Page: 612.318.1967
Key fingerprint = BEC6 3181 4C9B A7BB AF11  4717 6F85 B346 380D 523E

sleep: Command not found - The story of my life...
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