Ignite backup including other volume groups

[ICT Infrastructure]

Hello,

We would like to do an ignite backups of our server but also on the same tape have the application backup (other VG's). Is this possible?

Thanks in advance.

[Pete Randall]

It's possible (see the man page for make_tape_recovery) but the better approach is probably to use conventional backup methods for non-root vg's. Ignite is designed to rebuild a root VG so that you can then re-import your other VG's. Conventional backups are far better suited to the day to day needs for non-root VG's than an Ignite backup.

Pete

[James R. Ferguson · Accepted solution]

Hi:

'make_tape_recovery' supports including and/or excluding by volume group and/or directory. IF you have a current Ignite version look at the man pages. You can use multiple '-x inc_entire=/dev/dsk/|vg_name' options such as:

make_tape_recovery -x inc_entire=vg00 -x inc_entire=vg01 -I -v -a /dev/rmt/0mn

However, if you confine your Ignite 'make_tape_recovery' contents to vg00, you have the ability to use this tape to recover your OS environment and then 'vgimport' your (otherwise intact) non-vg00 volumes. You can also use the recovery tape to clone your system. Limiting your recovery image to just vg00 provides the utmost flexability.

Regards!

...JRF...

[John Dvorchak]

All good answers and I concur. What I do her is use Ignite to backup vg00 for system recovery for all of the reasons already mentioned. But then I use fbackup to backup the other vg's and I also include my /etc directory tree. I have had more than one occasion where I needed to replace a file in /etc and waiting to restore it from an Ignite tape can be frustrating.

Good luck,
John

[parkerleung]

Try make_tape_recovery if you are using 11i (or 11.11) or 11.0

If you are using 10.20 or below, you can only use make_recovery

The options I use for make_tape_recovery is -I -v -a. But for make_recovery I use -A -v -d.

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi:

'make_tape_recovery' works for 10.x or 11.x. For *either*, 'make_recovery' is deprecated.

Get a current release of Ignite software and documentation (man pages) from here:

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

Download the "A" version for 10.x. Download the "B" version for 11.x.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Bill Hassell]

VERY IMPORTANT: Ignite/UX uses pax as the backup tool so there is *no* support for large files. As long as none of your mounted filesystems allow large files, you could use Ignite/UX for multiple volume groups. But as many, many (very sorry) sysadmins will tell you: Don't try to append other backups to a single tape to save money!

However: pax is not very robust at all (it's just tar+cpio in a single utility). It lacks any error recovery capablity (a bad spot on the tape cannot be skipped), it lacks a central index (which means restoring one file may take hours), and will not handle exclusive open or locked files.

vg00 should be all that is on the Ignite tape. It is much faster to save just vg00, and the only useful feature of make_tape_recovery is to be able to restore a crashed boot disk or to make major layout changes to vg00. Run make_tape_recovery whenvever you make major changes to vg00 including kernel changes.

Use fbackup for everything, including vg00. The advantages in using fbackup are:

- central index file of everything backed up
- high speed search capability (minutes to restore any single file)
- error recovery (can resync past a bad spot on tape)
- up to 6 reader processes can be run to maximize throughput
- reader processes will retry locked files
- handles large files (as large as supported by that version of HP-UX)
- fbackup will not overwrite previous tapes in the same backup set
- regardless of the device file used, the tape is always rewound to prevent appending

Use fbackup for your day-to-day backups.

[Steven E. Protter]

Good call on the pax/fbackup, quite true.

For oracle db's for smallfiles, you will get a fuzzy backup if oracle is not down when you do the make_tape_recovery

That will make oracle databases difficult, possiblily impossible to recover after restoration.

If there has been transactions on the db since startup, the backup is "fuzzier" for lack of a better word and recovery is more problematic.

You can shut your databses down in your make_tape_recovery script, but this limits the usefullness of the command.

Steve

[Steven E. Protter]

addendum, oracle does NOT support restoring from a fuzzy backup.

If you call support, they will refuse to help you.

I've done it, but its not worth the stomach acid.

Steve