Automatic unattended execution of '

[Mike Meyer]

In article <49600015 at convexs> hosking at convexs.UUCP writes:
>How sleezy are you willing to be ?
>This is *really* crude, but it might work:
>
>The general idea is to temporarily replace /etc/rc with a dump script.

There is a better way.

The first thing our /etc/rc script does after fsck'ing the file
systems is:

	if [ -f /etc/special.reboot ]
	then
		sh -x /etc/special.reboot > /etc/special.reboot.out 2>&1
	fi

This allows me to do arbitrary things on reboot without fiddling with
the rc scripts.

Put a script to dump things plus a mv command in /etc/dump.reboot,
then arrange for cron to move /etc/dump.reboot to /et/special.reboot
and reboot the system. Much nicer than swapping rc scripts around and
rebooting multiple times.

Of course, the problem of needing extra tapes, what to do if the dump
or reboot dies, etc. are still there. Me, I'd just dump the stuff late
at night with active file systems and not worry about it. We run dumps
of active systems (at 4-6 in the morning), and have more trouble with
tapes going bad than we do with the file systems being active.

	<mike