backup question.. need to reduce fullbackup to 1 tape

[mike worrell]

Hi all,
I have to backup a server for a few months using a dds3 tape. We get a make_recovery every quarter and the system is static, no system changes made. The 2nd tape usually hits on the /usr directory and runs about 40 minutes. Are there any directories under /usr and/or /var that you would recommend excluding? (I've worked with our dba and application person and excluded all that we can safely exclude from our homegrown mountpoints.
Thanks,
Mike

[Steven E. Protter · Accepted solution]

Shalom Mike,

use the include statement to only do vg00

If you have anything in volume group that you boot besides boot stuff thats a best practices violation.

If you have a scratch directory cause your disk is huge (I had that problem), then exclude the mountpoint.

Hopefully you are actually using make_tape_recovery.

If you have done everything I have said then you probably need a higher capacity tape drive.

SEP

[Ivan Ferreira]

You could save som space by using the cleanup command, it will free /var/adm/sw/save.

Also, clean old syslog files. /var/tmp is good candidate.

Check /var/stm/logs, /var/adm/crash.

[siva0123]

And also you can free up some space in /var/preserve too if it exists.

Thanks,
siva

[mike worrell]

HI all,
I checked the directories you each recommended and they have just a few small files.
thanks

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Mike:

> "I've worked with our dba and application person and excluded all that we can safely exclude from our homegrown mountpoints."

I don't think that you have. Ignite is designed to allow the recovery of your operating system. Ignite is not a generalized backup tool.

If you have large '/home' filesystems and/or other application filesystems or directories, you need to develop a backup/recovery scheme that accomodates the recovery of vg00 of with Ignite and the recovery of application data secondarily and independently.

If you nave a vg00 configuration that has filesystems other than the standard ones, you are making recovery and operating system upgrades much more difficult than necessary. Isolate application filesystems on non-vg00 volume groups and move application data and databases outside vg00.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Yang Qin_1]

Hi, Mike, you can run "du -sk /usr/*" and "du -sk /var/*" then find the bigger directories have a look there see if you have some logs, core files ...


Yang

[mike worrell]

Let me restate what I am doing, think I have lead everyone to think it's the make_recov going to a 2nd tape. It's the fullbackup that is taking 2 tapes.

We are doing a full backup (fbackup) once a week. It is taking 2 tapes. Partials are done the other nights on 1 tape. We get a make_recovery once a quarter on this system that stays static, no system changes are ever made. Also every 6 weeks we get a full single user backup with everyone off.
Are there any directories in /var or /usr that I might exclude from my fbackup (graph file for fbackup) since I could get them back from the make_recovery should I need to. For example our dba gave me the path for the oracle installation files to exclude since they could be recovered from the full single user if needed.
Looking for anything I can exclude to get down to one tape so someone doesn't have to come back to mount the tape. I watched all these files in both directories scroll by and I was thinking there must be a bunch I could probably safely exclude. But wanted to check to see if anyone might know which ones might could be excluded.

Thanks so much

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi (again) MIke:

OK, you asked "Are there any directories in /var or /usr that I might exclude from my fbackup (graph file for fbackup) since I could get them back from the make_recovery should I need to."

Given what you describe, your 'fbackup' could probably exclude all of '/usr' and at least '/var/adm/sw' [your Installed Product Database] since these would be available from your Ignite recovery tape.

You could *exclude* '/usr' but *include* '/usr/local' if you keep volatile code therein.

From '/var', yuo could also exclude '/var/tmp', and perhaps '/var/mail', too.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Pete Randall]

Mike,

As long as you are VERY careful to make a new Ignite backup when ever anything changes in the root VG, most of those file systems could be skipped in your fbackup. The execption that I can see would be all the configuration changes that can affect /etc and/or /usr. The others, /var /opt /tmp /stand, should be static enough to skip.


Pete

[mike worrell]

HI Pete and James..
Thanks , that is the info I wanted .
This box stays static as far as the OS goes, no changes are ever made to it. It runs a doc mgmt application and the only that that changes is the data and most all of that is covered by the oracle database.

Mike

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Mike:

...and so do I get points for my input above? :-))

...JRF...