boot from make_tape_recovery

[Chushia]

I'm making a DR plan.

After that step "recover from make_tape_recovery", I'm not sure how much of the system can be recovered. Is file system back already ?
The next I have is a regular backup by cpio.
Can the next step be cpio -ivcBt < /dev/rmt/0m ?

Thanks,
Chushia

[A. Clay Stephenson]

It all depends upon how your make_tape_recovery is setup. Generally, Ignite is used to recreate /dev/vg00 so that all the filesystems/LVOL's under /dev/vg00 are back as they were and importantly your system is back at the same patch level. Non vg00 data are restored using conventional backups (tar, cpio, frecover, Data Protector, ... ) after building new VG's and making new filesystems.

Warning: Cpio cannot be used to restore files > 2GB; tar (even patched) has an 8GB limit. If you have large files then you need to use fbackup/frecover or a commercial tools like DataProtector.

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi:

Ignite is designed to recover vg00. Having Ignite'd a server with a 'make_tape_recovery' tape you either 'vgimport' disk volumes or create volume groups, logical volumes and empty filesystems which you then load from backup.

The process of building a vg00 with Ignite leaves you a fully functional operaating and networking system. The manner in which you backup and recover the non-vg00 filesystems is a choice you make.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Prashant Zanwar_4]

If you doubt any particular files.. you can just do comparison if restored or not..
But I dont think you have to worry for any as ignite will surely throw error for not restoring anything... if you think everything is functional, cpio wont be good idea..
Rgds
Prashant

[Prashant Zanwar_4]

and offcourse it will depend on ignite you make.. usually you will see all VG device and config files.. might be needed to import stuff, or even system might take care of it..

Gud luck
Prashant

[Chushia]

I have vg00 (total 36G) as regular file systems and vg01 for Informix database (uses raw devices).

I use "make_tape_recovery -I -v", and a script using cpio to backup application data and programs. The make tape took only 15 minuts, but the cpio took more than an hour.

I think after recover from the tape, the cpio and file systems on vg00 will be available so I can restore cpio tapes. Files are all < 2G no problem with cpio.

It looks like I need a step to build vg01 before informix restore because as you said, ignite will backup vg00 only.

Another question, all my vg00 and vg01 are mirrored. Will I need to do something to recover the mirrowed copy?

Chushia

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Note that cpio or tar cannot be used to backup raw devices. The only standard UNIX tool that can backup and restore UNIX data is dd --- and that is hardly a robust solution. Databases normally use the tools bundled with them to backup and restore raw devices although commercial tools like DataProtector can restore raw devices. One of the big "gotcha's" when using raw devices especially when restoring to another machise is that the device nodes are almost always going to change.

vg00 is normally remirrored after the Ignite is done.

[Prashant Zanwar_4 · Accepted solution]

You will need to remirror your vg00 and vg01, and offcourse you will need to do restore of application file system or vg01 file systems etc.. also file systems which are part of vg00 but nothing to do with root, might get restored too..

refer to

/opt/ignite/share/doc/diskmirror.pdf


Thanks
Prashant

[Alzhy]

Chuscia -- am wondering - you said your Informix data store uses raw storage. How did you back those up?

As others have responded already.. make_tape_recovery restores recover only "Filsystem based" components of the OS partitions plus whatever non-OS filesystems/paths you've specified.

For your vg01 -- which I assume are all raw lvols -- you will have to recover them via whatever tool you possibly used. I just cannot imagine how you were able to back those up via cpio if they were raw.

[Chushia]

Nelson,

Youe are right, vg01 are all raw divices and the Database backup is done by a tool informix provided. Restore to vg01 will be Informix tool as well.

Chushia