Backup to file server

[barmar@Think.COM (Barry Margolin)]

Does anyone have any modifications to the LMFS backup software that
allow it to use files on a file server as the backup medium instead of
tapes.  I've been using the Unix RTAPE server to dump to 9-track
reel-to-reel tapes on a Unix server, but we're phasing out those drives
here; most of our Unix dumps are done on Exabytes.  Also, the amount of
data that changes on our LMFS server is little enough that it's hard to
justify wasting a whole tape; I just did a three-month consolidated
backup, and only dumped 28 files.

We have an Epoch InfiniteStorage file server; this is an NFS server with
an optical disk jukebox, to which it automatically migrates and
retrieves files.  I'd like to send my dumps to files there, rather than
to tapes.

I already asked Symbolics, and they don't have anything that does this.
They suggested that I mount the LMFS as an NFS server and use tar.  But
that will lose version numbers (although I think there's a variable that
can be set to make all version numbers show up) and some file
properties.  Also, Unix (or at least SunOS) clients really don't like
slow NFS servers; they can bog down the entire machine, and I don't want
to screw the Unix users while I'm dumping.

                                                barmar