Hi,
I need to back up a RH file system (96G).
The files are oracle .dbf format some of which are 5G in size.
I know that tar has got a size restriction of 2G so I cannot use this.
Can anyone recommend an alternative way of backuping up this FS?
I have been looking at dump but this only appears to write to tape. I do not have any any attached tape devices.
Besides scp'ing to another server location are there any alternatives?
R,
D.
If you're running Oracle, that company is notorious for wanting things done a certain way. I'd go to their site and see what I could dig up. Never tried to back those up manually, but if you can take it offline for read time, I would think you could do a raw bit copy with dd.
dd would be only choice as zer0sig said.
Where u able to resolve it?
Try rsync may this will help you save the file to remote location
RH as in redhat?
Modern tar doesn't have a 2 gig size limitation. And Redhat would have a modern GNU tar.
What version of RHEL being used? Is the file system sitting on top of an LV? If so, you can easily make a backup solution with LVM snapshot and rsync. This should let you take back up regularly.
Post the details I need and I may help you with scripting the things. 
Thanks for the replies. I actually scp'ed the files to another off-site location as a temporary measure until I get an RMAN full backup in place.
R,
D.