likely means an exact image of a linux/unix file system can be made.
BackupPC saves backups onto disk. Because of pooling you can relatively
-economically keep several weeks of old backups. But BackupPC does not
-provide permanent storage to tape. Other Open Source applications can do
-this by backing up BackupPC's pool directories to tape.
+economically keep several weeks of old backups.
At some sites the disk-based backup will be adequate, without a
secondary tape backup. This system is robust to any single failure: if a
of the server disk failing can be made very small by spending more money
on increasingly better RAID systems.
-At other sites a secondary tape backup will be required. This tape
-backup can be done perhaps weekly from the BackupPC pool file system.
+At other sites a secondary tape backup or cd/dvd will be required. This
+backup can be done perhaps weekly using the archive function of BackupPC.
=back
Each of these programs reside in __INSTALLDIR__/bin.
+=head1 Archive functions
+
+BackupPC supports archiving to removable media. For users that require
+offsite backups, BackupPC can create archives that stream to tape
+devices, or create files of specified sizes to fit onto cd or dvd media.
+
+Each archive type is specified by a BackupPC host with its XferMethod
+set to 'archive'. This allows for multiple configurations at sites where
+there might be a combination of tape and cd/dvd backups being made.
+
+=head2 Configuring an Archive Host
+
+To create an Archive Host, add it to the hosts file just as any other host
+and call it a name that best describes the type of archive, e.g. ArchiveDLT
+
+To tell BackupPC that the Host is for Archives, create a config.pl file in
+the Archive Hosts's pc directory, adding the following line:
+
+$Conf{XferMethod} = 'archive';
+
+To further customise the archive's parameters you can adding the changed
+parameters in the host's config.pl file. The parameters are explained in the config.pl
+file.
+
+The example archive programs included with BackupPC are for a CD and
+Tape archive. The programs are called BackupPC_archivecd and
+BackupPC_archivetape. These are specified by the ArchiveClientCmd configuration
+parameter.
+
+=head2 Starting an Archive
+
+In the web interface, click on the Archive Host you wish to use. You will see a
+list of previous archives and a summary on each. By clicking the "Start Archive"
+button you are presented with the list of hosts and the approximate backup size
+(note this is raw size, not projected compressed size) Select the hosts you wish
+to archive and press the "Archive Selected Hosts" button.
+
+The next screen allows you to adjust the parameters for this archive run.
+Press the "Start the Archive" to start archiving the selected hosts with the
+parameters displayed.
+
=head1 BackupPC Design
=head2 Some design issues