Disaster Recovery Documentation

[Lane Frazier]

Hello,
I am trying to put together a "laundry list" of all the items I would think I would need to recover my HP-UX 11.0 system in the event of a disaster.

Items that come to mind are:

1. make_recovery tape
2. latest fbackup tape
3. swlist -l filelist output
4. printed vgdisplay -v
5 printed lvdisplay -v
6 printed lvlnboot -v
7. printed /etc/fstab
8 printed copy of recent bdf
9 printed copy of swapinfo
10. printed pvdisplay -v for each physical volume
11. ioscan -fun output

Can anybody else recommend anything else that I would need to recover a system...assume worst case... I have not had a disaster but I sure would like to cover all the bases ahead of time. Am I missing anything?

Also does anybody have a script that automates the capture of most of this info on a regular basis...I can see where keeping it up to date might tend to get time consuming.

Thanks to all the experts for your help.

[Stefan Farrelly · Accepted solution]

Your list is pretty good.

Dont forget output from print_manifest (Ignite command)

[James R. Ferguson]

Lane:

I would certainly include the current manifest generated by the make_recovery:

/var/opt/ignite/local/manifest/manifest.info

This provides a wealth of information in addtion to that which you have already cited.

...JRF...

[Victor BERRIDGE]

I agree,
I add inside the make_recovery tape box the root passwd used at the time the the DAT was generated (well more in the case you are in need of an older tape)

[Rick Garland]

The list looks complete. Add the print_manifest - you will get some duplication but then having some duplicate info is going to be better in the event of the worst case.

[Mark Mitchell]

In the case of a server change or loss of equipment, you may need to do an interactive restore so keep a copy of the /etc/profile and passwd because they are ussually not restored in an interactive recovery.

Also for speed, make a "make_sys_image" tape as well. Look at the ignite man pages for how and its practical uses.

[Antoanetta Naghiu]

As it was said, include the print_manifest.
You might want to include as well kernel params list (at least sysdef), info about printeres (lpstat -t), everntually network info (/etc/rc.config.d/netconf, /etc/nsswitch, /etc/hosts, /etc/resolv.conf.
Do not forget to include any licences info for the software (ex. mirror, glance, compilers, etc)

[Tim Malnati]

The only thing I would add is a step by step procedure of expected recovery actions. Review this thoroughly and get some additional input from the other groups that you work with (operations, dba's, networking, etc). After going through the exersize I have found that it can definitely prevent some mistakes considering the heat of the moment. In a larger environment, it's a good idea to also look at what applications have what priorities in terms of criticality to the business.

[Lane Frazier]

Thanks for all the great information. I have one further question dealing with the ignite manifest.

I installed ignite in Feb of this year and had to take it off because it interferred with another product. I have just straightened the problem out and have recently reinstalled ignite.

I have looked at the manifest.info file and it seems to have not been updated when I did my most recent install. also I have run make_recovery -A -C twice in the last few days.

How do I get the manifest.info file to reflect the correct information?

[James R. Ferguson]

Lane:

I wouldn't expect your manifest log to be any/much different each time you make a make_recovery tape. Most of the information in the manifest is fairly stable.

I think you are looking for:

/var/opt/ignite/logs/makrec.log1

This one shows the Begin/End Sucess/Failure of various runs and is timestamped.

...JRF...

[Vince Arends]

Lane, I was able to update the manifest.info file on my HP-UX 11.0 system by running print_manifest with no options specified (/opt/ignite/bin/print_manifest). This created a new manifest.info file that I was able to see with the -s option of the print_manifest command. Check out the man page for print_manifest.

Vince

[CHRIS_ANORUO]

Dear Lane

Your list is very good, look at this script that I have attached. You can add to it

Best regards


Chris