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NAME

smbtar - shell script for backing up SMB shares directly to UNIX tape drive

SYNOPSIS

smbtar -s server [ -p password ] [ -x service ] [ -X ] [ -d directory ] [ -u user ] [ -t tape ] [ -b blocksize ] [ -N filename ] [ -i ] [ -r ] [ -l log level ] [ -v ] filenames...

DESCRIPTION

This program is an extension to the Samba suite.

smbtar is a very small shell script on top of smbclient, which dumps SMB shares directly to tape.

OPTIONS

-s server
The PC that the share resides upon.

-x service

The share name on the PC to connect to. Default: backup.

-X

Exclude mode. Exclude filenames... from tar create or restore.

-d directory

Change to initial directory before restoring / backing up files.

-v

Verbose mode.

-p password

The password to use to access a share. Default: none

-u user

The user id to connect as. Default: UNIX login name.

-t tape

Tape device. May be regular file or tape device. Default: Tape environmental variable; if not set, a file called tar.out.

-b blocksize

Blocking factor. Defaults to 20. See tar(1) for a fuller explanation.

-N filename

Backup only files newer than filename. Could be used (for example) on a log file to implement incremental backups.

-i

Incremental mode; tar files are only backed up if they have the archive bit set. The archive bit is reset after each file is read.

-r

Restore. Files are restored to the share from the tar file.

-l log level

Log (debug) level. Corresponds to -d flag of smbclient(1) .

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

The TAPE variable specifies the default tape device to write to. May be overridden with the -t option.

BUGS

The smbtar script has different options from ordinary tar and tar called from smbclient.

CAVEATS

Sites that are more careful about security may not like the way the script handles PC passwords. Backup and restore work on entire shares, should work on file lists. smbtar works best with GNU tar and may not work well with other versions.

VERSION

This man page is correct for version 1.9.15p8 of the Samba suite.

SEE ALSO

smbclient(8) , smb.conf(8)

DIAGNOSTICS

See diagnostics for smbclient command.

CREDITS

The original Samba software and related utilities were created by Andrew Tridgell (samba-bugs@samba.anu.edu.au). Andrew is also the Keeper of the Source for this project.

Ricky Poulten (poultenr@logica.co.uk) wrote the tar extension and this man page. The smbtar script was heavily rewritten and improved by Martin Kraemer <Martin.Kraemer@mch.sni.de>. Many thanks to everyone who suggested extensions, improvements, bug fixes, etc.

See smb.conf(5) for a full list of contributors and details of how to submit bug reports, comments etc.

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