Burning data to multiple discs using Discspan

Discspan is a tool used to data over multiple discs. It is safer to have it create iso's rather than have it burn discs directly. It will choke on file names that have characters that are not allowed in iso file systems such as =. Unfortunately windows will allow these in file names. Often these are cache files that can be safely deleted but you will also see them used as files names for mp3 etc. You will need to correct these by hand.

Before running discspan copy the backup data to an external hard drive connected to workbench system you are using - do not try to run discspan on the backup server.

Discpan needs a DVD inserted to burn iso's it needs to figure out how much data it can fit on a disk. Large files will sometimes cause problems so you tell it not to use all of the disk capacity using the size factor option.

Run it like this

discspan.py  --dir=[directory to backup] --iso-dir=[(/var/tsbackup/iso/)dirname-iso] --size-factor=0.95 --disc-type=[DISC_TYPE]

DISC_TYPE needs to be replaced with the type of media you plan on burning to:

cdr, dvd_r, dvd_plus_r, dvd_rw, dvd_r_dl, dvd_rw_dl , dvd_plus_rw, dvd_plus_r_dl, dvd_plus_rw_dl

(normally one of the first three of these).

N.B. you will need to create the iso-dir (output directory) first. Afterwards you can burn them to disk using Brasero or k3b etc. (You can launch these remotely by logging in with ssh -XC and typing brasero etc on the command line or better still follow these instructions: DVD Burning from the Command Line

If it fails because of the file name issue you can use the --start-disc= option to start form the disk/iso that failied e.g --start-disc=4

Making a single iso

If you know your data will fit on a single disk you can use:

genisoimage -o cd.iso -R -J cd_dir

(This is what discspan.py uses behind the scenes).

Renaming Files

The ISO file system does not support the use of '=' in file names. So, before you create any images, rename any files with '=' in the file name by running the following command:

 find [backup directory] -name "*=*" | rename 's/=/[replacement string]/g'