General Ignite Questions

[John_44]

Hello,

I have never had to use an ignite tape, I have just recently become aquainted with the product so I have some general questions. First and foremost being does it work? Are there are any situations where it won't work? I have been able to successfully create tapes. How long does a typical restore take? Just looking for some general guidance. Any advice would be appreciated and I will assign points.

John B.

[Uday_S_Ankolekar]

Hello,

Try this manual,

http://docs.hp.com/hpux/onlinedocs/B2355-90704/B2355-90704.html

and also look at this faq,

http://www.software.hp.com/products/IUX/iux_faq

-USA..

[PIYUSH D. PATEL]

Hi,

Normally I would use this command to create the Ignite tape

# make_tape_recovery -v -A -I -x inc_entire=vg00

the -x inc_entire lets you include all from a volume group and backups vg00


In order to check whether the tape which you created is working or not

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.

Or else if you have a test system then you can try restoring the tape backup thro it.


You can use an Ignite-server to store all images of other servers also. We use the Ignite-client-menu which is easy to use.

You can also use the following for making system recoveries of other servers on the network

# make_net_recovery -i
It will run in interactive mode on the Ignite server and you'll have this menu where you can select the VG's to be included in your image and the server which you can select.

Hope this helps

Piyush

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Tape recoveries work very well and depending upon the system and software installed generally require about 30 minutes to an hour. (~ 40 minutes is a good average value). Generally, the problems with Ignite fall into two categories: 1) Not understanding what the product is really intended to do. 2) Expecting a recovery tape made on one platform to work perfectly well on another class. e.g. Ignite tape made on a D370 is almost certainly not going to work on an L-class.

I strongly urge you to print and read a copy of the 'Ignite-UX Administrator's Guide' before you do any serious Ignite projects. You should also remember that Ignite is intended to essentially restore vg00 including installed software and patches and to get you to a point where the other VG's can be restored using traditional backup tools (frestore, cpio, tar, OB2 ...).

Doing a make_tape_recovery should become a routinely scheduled task for each of your boxes (unless you do net recoveries).

[Sanjay_6]

Hi John,

Try this link for the ignite faq,

http://www.software.hp.com/products/IUX/faq.html

And this for the admin guide for ignite,

http://www.software.hp.com/products/IUX/docs/sysadm.html

I think most of us have used one way or the other and it is a good tool to be familiar with.

Hope this helps.

Regds

[John_44]

"You should also remember that Ignite is intended to essentially restore vg00 including installed software and patches and to get you to a point where the other VG's can be restored using traditional backup tools (frestore, cpio, tar, OB2 ...)"

So if I lose root disk and re-install via ignite than all of my VG's, VG01,02,03 and so on, will not be active after recovery? And to take this one step further, if they are active, or can be activated, will I still have data on them? I am a little confused and glad that I asked this question.

John B.

[Steve Post]

Ignite just restores vg00. So your other volume groups will NOT be on the tape.
You use ignite to bring you system up.
You use a different method to restore your other stuff. (i.e. 1 ignite tape for vg00, 1 data tape for non-vg00 filesystems.)

For me, I would: 1. restore a system with ignite.
2. reload omniback onto the resurrected system,
3. use omniback to restore the other filesystems.

Besides omniback, there's fbackup, cpio, and tar.

[Luc Bussieres_1]

Hello,

I won' t repeat what the other people told you put I just want to add my 2 cents:

One important with make_recovery they work very well but make sure you never use your VG00 for anything else then the system. For two main reason:
1) the make recovery will become too large and it will take too long to create and recover.
2) Make_recovery does not support the files bigger then 2 Gig. This is because it use pax to restore the files and pax does not support these large files.

Regards
Luc,

[Darrell Allen]

Hi John,

By all means, implement regular Ignite backups! It is fantastic for rebuilding a system.

Here's a practical case for Ignite. Let's say you are performing some upgrades, adding a bunch of patches, or perhaps even re-organizing the layout of vg00 and / or some of its filesystems. Now let's say something went wrong. If you have an Ignite backup, you can rebuild vg00 in a flash. It will be back like it was with all software, configurations, and patches like it was when you made the backup. You would have to manually re-mirror vg00 but there's a slew of threads in the forums that tell how to do so easily.

As for the other volume groups, with LVM they can be imported. Data is not removed from them when you reload vg00 (unless you overwrite the wrong disk). You don't have to restore these filesystems, just import the volume groups.

There is no substitute for Ignite on an HPUX system! And it's free!

Darrell

[John_44]

I understand that my other VG's will not be on the tape. But I was under the impression that the mechanisms for importing my other VG's would be on the tape.

"As part of an Ignite tape recovery, Ignite will 'vgimport' your non-vg00 volume groups as a part of its processing. If you are recovering to a server at a disaster recovery site, for instance, you may need to manual issue 'vgimport' commands since the disk device files cataloged by Ignite when it created the recovery tape differ. This is only a minor inconvenience."

Is the above false? And if it is true will I still have to recover data? And just have the VG structures? Trying to understand this.

John B.