Beginners backup

[JP2]

Hello,

We've just received two HP-UX Workstations for use in testing, but I don't have a lot of HP-UX experience. The systems were delivered already installed and I'd like to back that up before I do anything else that might break it. I have yet to try installing HP-UX, but before I start I'd like to have a fallback ready.

I have read the manual for IGNITE-UX and believe it has the capacity to take that backup for me, and reapply it fairly well. I am not convinved though that it is a good solution, because I would need to install the ignite server on each system to backup the other.

That would then lead to a chicken and the egg scenario if either machine was restored from backup - its copy of the other machines backup would not be recovered, and restoring the good machine is my first question.

So, my questions:
1. If I did go ahead and use each server to back up the other, lets say machine B fails and needs restoration. Machine A is used and restores machine B. After reinstalling the ignite server on machine B, how easy is it to copy in machine A's backup (taken just after delivery). Is it just a case of copying the data files back into ignite's data directories? If there is extra data, can that be copied out (to CD, for example) easily for later restoration?

2. Is there a simpler way?
Can you refer me to any tools that would achieve my goal (a simple backup of a bootable system, no data or appliations present). Unfortunately, I won't have access to any commercial backup software so I'm looking to make do with what comes with HP-UX or I can download for free.

Thanks in advance,

JP.

P.S. I'm not asking for any step by step instructions - if you can tell me what to look up in the manuals, that'd be great.

[Patrick Wallek]

In this case my first choice would be some sort of tape drive. From the sounds of it you don't have one though, do you?

You could even make do with a single drive and use it on both machines. Just detach from one and attach to the other when needed.

[JP2]

No, I don't believe I have access to a tape drive. I certainly don't have my own tapes, anyway.

I do have network space (I have a FreeBSD system running in VMWare that I can set up anything I want in, for example NFS) from which I can easily go to CD/DVD. The HP-UX machine has a DVD drive but I'm pretty sure its read only.

[Bill Hassell]

Without a tape drive on either machine, I think the design of these two boxes is in question. Ignite is only to backup VG00, the OS volumes. Your FreeBSD system is of no use as an Ignite server. Understand that Ignite is used to install a dead box -- no data on disk, no NFS, no nothing. Another HP-UX box could act as a network installer but with only two boxes, both servers must act as an Ignite network server for each other.

Then there's the problem with data. Do the servers have more than twice as much disk than they will ever need? The reason is that everything on each server must be copied to the other server. And how will you recover a file from 5 weeks' ago when you backup every week? Note that CDs and DVDs are far too small to be used as a practical backup solution.

Using NFS to backup data between the machines will be slow and very cumbersome. If these machines are going into production, I would strongly getting a consultant to go over the architecture as it looks like these two systems are going to run into big trouble.

[JP2]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the feedback.

Fortunately, data won't be a problem on these machines. They are for testing software applications being developed in house, so we will not have any data that needs backing up - anything loaded on the machine will be from some form of test plan.

If the situation arises that we completely ruin an installation of HP-UX, we will only need to re-load the OS. So, that's really the part that I'd like to ensure works well.

P.S. Although I have a FreeBSD system available, I think it can provide storage space but that's pretty much all. I know it certainly can't run Ignite - or any other HP system software.