Looking for multi-DVD spanning archiver

[Robert G. (Doc) Savage]

On Sat, 2010-06-05 at 19:45 -0400, Bill Davidsen wrote:
> Robert G. (Doc) Savage wrote:
> > I want to off-load the entire /pub/fedora/linux/releases/13/Everything/
> > directory (46,864 items, totalling 59.7 GB) to a modest stack of single-
> > or dual-layer DVD-Rs. Is there a multi-DVD spanning archiver capability
> > in F13? Ideally I'd like to use an application that writes and reads
> > directly to/from a DVD drive and prompts for the next disc until done.
> > 
> tar will do volumes. You will want to write a small script to prompt you, 
> probably. The problem is not that there is no capability, but there are so many. 
> Clarifying your needs for features like restoring individual files, encryption, 

Bill,

Thanks, but I think you're reading way too much into my request. File
sizes in the .../Everything directory range from a few 27-char soft
links to a ginormous 883,104,197-char nexuiz-data-2.5.2-1.fc13.src.rpm.
I want to be able to copy that directory with all its subordinate
directories, files, ownerships, permissions, etc. onto a minimum number
of DVDs. Ideally I'd want to pop all those discs into a DVD drive on a
new machine and use 'cp -a' to recreate the .../Everything directory.

'discspan', a Python script suggested by Richard Shaw, appears to fill
the bill very nicely. Unfortunately it just crapped out after burning
the first DVD-R on an RHEL5 server actually hosting the .../Everything
directory. I'm about to retry from an F13 laptop and an NFS/autofs link.
If it successfully gets past the disc #1 to #2 transition under F13, it
should finish after 14 DVD-R discs.

I'll let you know in a few hours.

--Doc Savage
  Fairview Heights, IL