HDD backups over a null-modem cable
Jukka Aho
modem cable. The backups should ideally maintain the directory
structure, Amiga filenames, Latin 1 characters in the Amiga filenames,
file attributes, file comments, etc. intact. At the simplest level, it
would suffice if I could create straight binary dumps of the HDD
partitions over the serial cable, but I'm open to suggestions.
On a networked UNIX system, I would use either "dd" or "tar" for this
purpose, in combination with utilities such as "gzip" or "bzip2", and
pipe the data over the network using "nc" (netcat).
Equivalent programs seem to be available on Aminet, but my Amiga is not
networked. How to handle the serial communication in a similar, graceful
manner as netcat would handle communications over the network? Keep in
mind that I can't create the backup images in advance, as ready-made
files on the Amiga HDD, as I don't have that much free space there.
Basically, I would need to be able to pipe hundres of megabytes data
over the serial cable "live". Raw serial access is not enough for this
purpose, since data corruption might occur. While in transit, data needs
to be protected with some sort of packetization and CRC check / packet
resend capabilities.
Would anyone happen to know if there is an Amiga implementation of the
"rz" and "sz" ZModem utilities that could be used straight from the
command line, in combination with the PIPE: device. Or perhaps something
similar for some other protocol? Or something more obvious that I'm
totally missing?
(I'm afraid that GUI apps - such as GUI terminal programs - are of no
use here, but feel free to prove me wrong!)
--
znark
Christian Brandt
> You should absolutely have a look at the Axsh remote shell on aminet.
I suggest you pack your stuff together with lha and then use
twinexpress to transfer the stuff. Twin-Express achieves 230kBps between
Amiga and PC and nearly 1MBps between two fast Amigas. All over serial
cable.
Christian Brandt