Backup using dump or vxdump on NFS filesystems

[Johan den Boer]

Hi,

I have mounted a file system over nfs on my HP server. If I want to use dump to backup the file system I get an error. Does anyone know if you can use dump or vxdump to backup the nfs filesystem. Is there a patch for the dump program ?

Regards,

Johan den Boer

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Johan:

You can use 'fbackup'. Adding the '-n' option allow crossing NFS mountpoints. In addtion, 'fbackup' can be used to backup remote filesystems regardless of NFS. Have a look at the man pages for more information.

Regards!

...JRF...

[John Palmer]

dump and vxdump process a filesystem by accessing the logical volume (or partition).

They are not designed to process a NFS mounted filesystem.

Regards,
John

[Darrell Allen]

Hi Johan,

Perhaps you can run rdump on the remote system using you HP as the destination. This assumes the remote system is a UNIX type system.

Darrell

[Frank Slootweg]

dump and vxdump must *run* on the system where the filesystem actually resides, i.e. on the NFS server.

However as Dareell mentioned you can use the r-versions (rdump/rvxdump) to *access* a remote tape device, i.e. 'back' to your local (NFS client) system.

If you also want to *invoke* this process from you local system, then you can do so with remsh(1).

I.e. on local system use remsh to run r(vx)dump on the remote (NFS server) system to backup to a tape drive on the local system.

If you absolutely need to backup over NFS, then as James mentioned you can use fbackup, but, like all NFS operations, backup over NFS will be slow.