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Re: Stand alone backup

 

Re: Stand alone backup

Hi,

The production vaxes i have are all of type 4000-106 having three disks each 2GB attached. One is the system disk (VMS6.2) , the other 2 are data disks in use by the application. Furthermore, there is tape drive attached. That's all.

I just managed to cleanup one of the data disks to have enough room to store a backup save set of the system disk.

There is no way i get authorisation to either physically add a disk or to clean/wipe an existing data disk to do a backup from disk -> disk. Downtime is almost not an option - maybe 1 hour max.

Cheers,

Petran.
Steven Schweda
Honored Contributor

Re: Stand alone backup

If you can't do it with what you have, and
you can't add anything, then I don't see a
good solution.

I still like the external SCSI CD-ROM drive
with the new-enough VMS CD-ROM. A cheap-junk
drive should be under $20, and you could
probably get a CD-ROM image from several of
the folks here (or buy the Hobbyist CD-ROM
for $30). Including a cable, and a lot of
shipping and handling, you _might_ be able
to spend $100, but it wouldn't be easy.

Every system should have a CD-ROM drive.
Even _my_ obsolete junk systems have CD-ROM
drives. (They may be Toshiba XM3401 (4X)
drives, but they have them. The 1987
VAXstation 2000 is the only exception.)

Everything else I've thought of so far would
be more work, more money, and more down-time.
Andy Bustamante
Honored Contributor

Re: Stand alone backup


The system managers manual (v5) states: "Stand alone backup employes a subset of backup qualifiers and only performs image and physical operations."

This means you won't be able to mount a disk and write a backup save set with stand alone backup. You also won't be able to restore a backup save set file from stand alone backup.

You still have some choices. A system disk backup to tape is the best option. Having several copies, in different locations is recommended of course. You could copy one of your data disks to tape and use stand alone backup to create a second bootable system disk, then restore your data. This would give you a second boot disk, "just in case."

Another option, that HP won't recommend but that has a history of success. Create an image backup of your system disk while booted. You'll get assorted error messages, log and account files won't get completely recorded. You should pick a time with no (or low) login activity. A regular backup with a fall back to a occasional stand alone backup may meet your needs. You need to know that this will probably work, have a fall back position and have your business requirements accept "probably work." A financial trading company wouldn't accept this solution for example. A machine shop that last tuned it's VAX in 1991 and only rebooted for the power outage won't have a problem.

Andy





If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over? Reach me at first_name + "." + last_name at sysmanager net
Robert_Boyd
Respected Contributor

Re: Stand alone backup

Petran,

Have you tried specifying the /LABEL= on your output disk device on your backup command?

I am pretty sure that many moons ago I did something pretty much like what you are trying to do. I think if it's going to work you either may have to specify the label or use the /IGNORE=LABEL/NOINIT. What I don't understand is why the software thinks it can't work with a cluster size larger than 1. The HELP/MESSAGE for this error doesn't help much either.

I am pretty sure that if you have a disk that is initialized and has nothing on it, that if you do a backup of the form you specified will put the saveset in the [000000] directory. What happens if you specify /BLOCK=something ?

Robert
Master you were right about 1 thing -- the negotiations were SHORT!
Vladimir Fabecic
Honored Contributor

Re: Stand alone backup

Hello
I didn't noticed that you are speaking about vax and "old style" stand alone backup.
Using this type of backup you can not do backup to save set on hard disk. Because disk must be MOUNTED to do that, and you can not mount disk from this standalone backup.
You can do backup to save set only to tape.
You can do direct backup disk to disk only (for example $ bac/image dka0: dka100:).
Not sure for 7.3 VMS, but 6.2 works like that.
There is another option you can use, of course, not so good as "cold backup":
- stop all applications
- stop all network services (TCP IP, LAT and DECNET)
- stop queue manager (very important)
- then do $ BACKUP/IMAGE/LOG/IGNORE=INTERLOCK dka0: dka100:[backup]dka0.bac/save
Long time ago (when vax machines were production servers) I restored two system disks from backups made like that.
Of course, CD boot or another system disk is the best way.
In vino veritas, in VMS cluster

Re: Stand alone backup

Hi,

Robert,
I tried all kinds of combinations using the /noinit, ignore=label, label=, block_size=32256 parameters etc but all in vain.... in all cases, it displayed the error message

$backup-f-savsetclu save set disk cluster factor must be 1

(Does anybody understand this error message?)

Andy,
I take the point that standalone backup only offers a sub-set of the backup qualifiers but it seems very odd to me that one and the same command works if I use a tape device as destination but does not work if I use a disk device as destination e.g

$back/image/ver dkb0: mua0:bck.sav/sav /labe=ppp => works!

$back/image/ver dkb0: dka100:bck.sav/sav /labe=ppp => does NOT work!

A system backup to tape is not a good option for us for the following reasons - it requires more downtime and the second - even better one - is that the goal of this all is to port the VAX to a CHARON emulation which has no tape drive....

Steven,
On another VAX 4000-106 that does have a CDROM build in, I tried to boot in the real "backup" using the VMS 6.2 installation CD and it worked - I got the $$$ prompt and I could create the backup.
Is there any way I can somehow load this minimal $$$ system to a disk?. If at all possible, what much diskspace would this consume?

Cheers,

Petran
Uwe Zessin
Honored Contributor

Re: Stand alone backup

> $backup-f-savsetclu save set disk cluster factor must be 1
>
> (Does anybody understand this error message?)


I thought I have explained what it means:

the target disk is treated like a tape device.


You can make a BACKUP/IMAGE copy of the V6.2 CD contents to a disk - this will provide you with a simple VMS system. But do not forget that it will wipe out the target disk!! Else, you can manually copy the directory trees, make the alias entries and write the bootblock.
.

Re: Stand alone backup

Hi,

Uwe,
Seems to me like a shortcoming (bug?) of the backup command - from the device specification, it can very well determine if it is a tape or disk device and act accordingly e.g. not assume all destinations are tape devices.....

Is there a way I can trick backup to treat it as a disk device or modify backup parameters so a 'tape-like' commands work on the disk as well or should I just conclude that standalone backup cannot be used to achieve what I wanted?

Cheers,

Petran.
Uwe Zessin
Honored Contributor

Re: Stand alone backup

It's not a bug - it's how it was designed 20 years ago. And it has not much developed 10 years later - except for a bootable CD.
.
Uwe Zessin
Honored Contributor

Re: Stand alone backup

If you're bored - here is some more info:
http://h71000.www7.hp.com/DOC/73final/6017/6017pro_044.html#savesets_seqdisk_bck

You see - it's only of limited use today and there is no 'trick' available, because advanced ODS handling is just not implemented in standalone backup.
.