recognizing tapes

[Vogra]

Hi All!
if I think a tape was generated by make_recovery utilitie, how can I check if it's true?
thanx.

[Helen French · Accepted solution]

Some possible solutions:

1) Boot from tape on a test system
2) Check tape with copy_boot_tape(1m) command to check the tape's LIF area
3) Use lifls or lifcp to examin bootlif area
4) Use pax to check the media content
5) Also check this document (TKB# KBRC00007230):

http://support1.itrc.hp.com/service/cki/docDisplay.do?docLocale=en_US&docId=200000058669467

[Luc Bussieres_1]

If you have run the make_recovery using the tape /dev/rmt/0m you could use the 2 following commnads to look at the content of the newly created tape:

1) mt -t /dev/rmt/0mn fsf 1
This will move forward (fsf 1) on the tape to skip the boot block without rewinding it (/dev/rmt/0mn)

2) tar tvf /dev/rmt/0m
This will list each files that where backup with the make_recovery.

Regards

Luc

[Thomas Schler_1]

Claudio,

of course, you're not able to test the tape by trying to boot from it (it would at once destroy your current system).

I do following two tests:

1. Verify that there are two filesets on the tape. The 1st fileset contains the sequence for initiating the installation procedure (it replaces the kernel by an installing "kernel" called INSTALL). The 2nd fileset contains the root volume group (or parts of it depending on whether you used the -A option of make_recovery or not).

To verify do:
mt -t /dev/rmt/0mb fsf 1 # forwards one fileset and then rewinds the tape, no error message should occurr
mt -t /dev/rmt/0mb fsf 2 # forwards two filesets and then rewinds the tape, no error message should occurr
mt -t /dev/rmt/0mb fsf 3 # tries to forward three filesets and then rewinds the tape; since only two filesets should be present an error message should appear

2. Verify that the 2nd fileset contains a tar archive. Do:
mt -t /dev/rmt/0mnb fsf 1 # forwards one fileset and does no rewind
tar ft /dev/rmt/0mb # read the content of the tar archive

This tar archive should contain files/directories being normally only on the root volume group.