fbackup Vs. ignite backup

[Hasan_9]

Hello everybody,

What is the difference between fbackup and ignite backup? I plan to make a whole backup of my server. This box has 5 different volume groups. I want to make a backup of all of them. Which one is a better solution fbackup or make_tape_recovery?
Please advice.

[Patrick Wallek · Accepted solution]

Actually, a really good backup scheme would use both fbackup and make_tape_recovery.

Do a make_tape_recovery of your VG00. This will allow you to restore your VG00 (OS) VG if something should happen that renders your server unbootable. You boot from the tape and your VG00 will be rebuilt to the state it was when the tape was made. If the data on your other VGs is still, then you can just import those other VGs, if necessary, and your are back up and running. I run make_tape_recovery's weekly on all my servers.

I would then use fbackup of your other data. You could do all data, even VG00, if you like. The fbackup will allow you to do easier single or multi-file restores if you have to. You can do nightly full backups with fbackup, or you can do a single full once a week and then incrementals the rest of the week.

[John Payne_2]

make_tape_recovery is not really intented for use as a 'data' backup tool. It's purpose really is to reinstall your system to a specific state. By default it includes only the essentials needed to accomplish the reinstall. (Then it is assumed you can restore from other sources your data.) You can, however, force it to include all of vg00, or all of vg00 and vg01, for example. While you can extract specific files, I am not positive, but I believe the archive is not indexed. It is likely impractical for you to use make_tape_recovery to restore data unless you want to reinstall the entire system.

fbackup, on the other hand, allows you to backup the stuff you want, you can specify a full/incremental schedule, and contains an index, which allows you to restore data faster. For a free backup/restore tool, I think it's pretty good.

If you are looking for something that will get you fully recovered after a disaster, I recommend a combination of the 2 tools. make_tape_recovery (or make_net_recovery) for the OS, fbackup/frecover to restore your data. If you are just looking for something free and robust enough to backup your data, fbackup is your tool.

Hope it helps

John

[Patrick Wallek]

John,

No the make_tape_recovery archive is not indexed. Remember that it is basically just a simple tar archive by default. Though, you can force cpio if you really want. The '-m' switch control the archive type. Regardless, neither tar nor cpio do any indexing. If you want to restore a file from the make_tape_recovery tar archive, and it just happens to be the last file on the tape, it will have to read every file on the tape until it gets to the one you want to restore.

So single file restores from a make_tape_recovery tape are possible, they are by no means fast.

[Devender Khatana]

Hi,

We shall not use one approach for backing up both OS and data in any situation. Reason being that there are always very rare chances of both your OS and data getting lost at the same time. A better approach will be to backup OS periodically (as there are not major changes always) and do a repeated frequent backup of data (Frequency shall depend upon the changes in the data).

Repeating both backups at less frequency will not be helpful as ultimately during restore it will be very lenghty and time comsuming. Also when the OS os corrupted there is no point in restoring the current data with one of few hours back and vice versa as well when data is corrupted one will not wish to start by restoring the OS.

HTH,
Devender

[Hasan_9]

Thank you everybody,
So, you recommend me to use make_tape_recovery for making a backup from vg00 and fbackup for making a backup from vg01,vg02,â ¦.
There is a backup option in SAM, What is that? Does it use fbackup or make_tape_recovery?

[Devender Khatana]

Hi,

Yes your assumption is correct and one should use ignite for OS and fbackup for data backup if no backup solution is purchased.

The sam option if backup uses fbackup and not ignite.

HTH,
Devender

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom Hasan,

sam uses fbackup and frecover just as the names imply.

Note that if you use make_tape_recovery or its twin make_net_recovery (for machines without tape drives) Databases and such will not be properly backed up unless shut down.

Therefore the twin strategy above is the way to go concerning backup strategy.

Most shops use Ignite to get system images of vg00. Note that the entire logical volume(LVM) structure will be preserved when restoring.

The data will not be changed, but the structure will be laid down when booting off an Ignite image.

SEP