Veritas-bu

Re: [Veritas-bu] Could you read my tape? I threw it out my caraccidentally and you caught it. BackupExec/Netbackup

2008-07-25 22:19:52
Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Could you read my tape? I threw it out my caraccidentally and you caught it. BackupExec/Netbackup
From: "Martin, Jonathan" <JMARTI05 AT intersil DOT com>
To: "Siano, James C" <james.c.siano AT lmco DOT com>, <veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu>
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2008 22:06:06 -0400

A BackupExec tape that is unencrypted can be read by either Netbackup or BackupExec with an appropriate drive type.  I haven’t administered BackupExec in a while, but if I remember correctly, put the tape in the drive, select the media in BackupExec and select “Inventory”.  Netbackup can also read BackupExec media via the import command.

 

I doubt ntbackup can read BackupExec tapes’ format, but if I was in a hurry I would simply download a trial of BackupExec from Symantec and use that.  Alternately, I’m sure companies like OnTrak have specific custom apps for reading blocks off tapes for this purpose.

 

As with all encryption, the time to crack would depend heavily on how strong the encryption is and how many resources you’ve got dedicated to cracking it.  Assuming you were using AES 256bit encryption on an LTO4 drive you’d have 1) as long as it takes to manually brute force the encryption (estimated to be 38 quadrillion years / number of keys per second you test), 2) as long as it takes some inquisitive bugger to come up with a shortcut to cracking AES 256bit or 3) considering how haphazard you appear to be with your backup media, the length of time it takes you to lose and someone nefarious to find your encryption keys.

 

-Jonathan

 


From: veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu [mailto:veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu] On Behalf Of Siano, James C
Sent: Friday, July 25, 2008 9:30 PM
To: veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
Subject: [Veritas-bu] Could you read my tape? I threw it out my caraccidentally and you caught it. BackupExec/Netbackup

 

If I lost a tape – say SDLT or LTO-x – that was written with Backexc 9.0 and someone on this forum  found it….had the write hardware…and either a version of BackupExec 9 or greater, or, an instance of Netbackup…..could you read my tape?  The tape is non-encrypted.

 

Could you read that tape with the “ntbackup” iteration on a plain jane Windows XP workstation given hardware was available?

 

Could you do it if the tape was encrypted --- and had as long as necessary to attempt to crack the encryption.

 

 

 

Thanks.

 

 

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