some q's about make_recovery

[someone_4]

I am working on making some ignite tapes. I am using

make_recovery -A

I know this will only create a basic recovery tape that will restore the core os and recover a down system.

I have already done a make_recovery on a 24G DDS-3 data cartridge.

What is the best way to do a make_recovery every 2 weeks?

Do I use the same take over and over for say 6 months?

Or do I alternate beteween 2 tapes?

Will the make_recovery append to the end of the last make_recovery or does it over write each time?

How can I be 100% sure that I have a good make_recovery to boot from?

Thanks,
Richard

[Mark Vollmers · Accepted solution]

Richard-

like any other backup, it will overwrite the previous information on the tape. I have four tapes, and use one each quarter, so each tape is re-written once a year. I believe that HP recommends making a new tape if there have been changes, but otherwise I'd space it out (every two weeks seems short, unless you are constantly modifying the core files). It should tell you that it was successful after it ran, but I don't know of a way to test without actually using a box.

Mark

[harry d brown jr]

Use at least two tapes, but three is choice!

It will OVERWRITE the tape, just a feature :-))

It has to put the LIF boot on the tape (the beginning).

Also, upgrade your ignite (if you haven't done so because make_rrecovery is being obsoleted) and use make_tape_recovery or make_net_recovery.

live free or die
harry

[Helen French]

Hi Richard,

1) Upgrade the make_recovery to make_tape_recovery. That's have more options and flexibility.
2) You can set cron jobs if needed, to repeat the job every 2 weeks. Otherwise do it manually ! I make these tapes every month with my monthly backup and store it indefenitely, OR before/after a hardware/kernel update.
3) I would not suggest you to recycle the same tape for 6 months ! You can make use of 3 or 4 tapes for rotation ( it's ur choice !).
4)For 100% assurance, you may have to try the restore itself (may be in a test server ?) ! But you still have some options like 'check_recovery', log files, 'pax' command to see the content etc.

HTH,
Shiju

[harry d brown jr]

Richard,

use check_recovery (you need the new version of ignite):

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


live free or die
harry

[Patrick Wallek]

First things first; I would download and install the latest version of Ignite/UX. You can get it from http://software.hp.com/products/IUX

Then when creating a tape I would use:

# /opt/ignite/bin/make_tape_recovery -a /dev/rmt/?mn -I -v -x inc_entire=vg00

The make_tape_recovery command is replacing make_recovery and make_recovery will, in all likelihood, go away eventually.

Now to answer your questions:

I have a cron job set up that will run a script which runs the above make_tape_recovery command at 3:00PM every Sunday afternoon.

I had a series of 4 tapes that I rotated through. The operators remove the tapes every Monday morning and send them to our offsite storage.

I would definitely NOT use the same tape over and over. If the tape goes bad and you don't know it and wind up needing the tape, then you are out of luck.

To verify the tape you can do a couple of things:

1) Do the following to make sure the pax archive portion is good:

# mt -f /dev/rmt/?mn rew
# mt -f /dev/rmt/?mn fsf 1
# tar -tvf /dev/rmt/?mn

This will list to the screen everything that is on the tape.

2) To make sure the tape is bootable, insert into the drive (I like to write protect them first just to be safe), reboot your machine, interrupt the boot process, boot the machine from the tape. Now if you used the -I option in the command above the machine will automatically come up to a menu and wait for user input. It will NOT automatically install anything.

make_tape_recovery overwrites the tape each time it is run. It does this because the portion of the tape that makes it bootable has to be at the very beginning of the tape.

I hope this answered all your questions.

[Helen French]

Richard,

Sorry, missed one question:

Overwrite - YES, it will overwrite the media everytime !

HTH,
Shiju

[Darrell Allen]

Hi Richard,

Re-using the same tape for each backup means that if it is bad, you don't have another backup tape to fall back on. Unless a number of your systems are clones of each other and could be easily rebuilt from an Ignite backup of each other, you should at least alternate between 2 tapes.

make_recovery (or make_tape_recovery) overwrite the tapes.

Use Ignite's copy_boot_tape utility to verify the tape's boot image:
copy_boot_tape -u /dev/rmt/0mn -d /var/tmp -b
My system requires about 60MB for the bootimage file copy_boot_tape will put in /var/tmp. Check your bdf usage before using. Man copy_boot_tape for more info.

You can also rewind the tape, space forware 1 file, and use tar (or pax) to view / extract the contents of the data archive on an Ignite tape:
mt -t /dev/rmt/0m rewind
mt -t /dev/rmt/0mn fsf 1
tar tvf /dev/rmt/0m

Darrell

[someone_4]

I have upgraded to the newest version of make_tape_recovery. I will start doing my ignite backups via cron.Me and my IT director have also meet with HP on an omniback back up solution a big one !! I will post later and let everyone know what comes out of that one.

Richard

[Patrick Wallek]

Just keep in mind that Ignite/UX is designed ONLY with backing up VG00, your root VG, in mind. It is a QUITE useful tool for recovering your system if a root disk fails.

Omniback is a good solution for backing up the rest of your data on the system.