Disaster recovery information

[Sean OB_1]

Hello everyone.

I'd like to find out what information you would want available to you in the event that you had to rebuild a server.

Let's assume that you don't have an ignite manifest for the server.

What information would you want, and what commands would you use to get this information.

TIA,

Sean

[Allan Pincus]

Sean,

Can you give more information out? Pardon my ignorance, but what do you mean by "manifest"? Do you mean the install CD-ROMS?
- Allan

[Pete Randall]

Sean,

I keep hard copies of basic system information like disk layouts, file system sizings, OS versions (&patches), application versions, database schemas, and the like.

I also like to use the ignite manifest.

Pete

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Sean:

If you have generated an Ignite recovery tape using 'make_tape_recovery', then you automaitcally *have* an Ignite manifest. Its:

# /var/opt/ignite/recovery/latest/manifest

If you wish to extract this from your Ignite tape *before* you use the tape otherwise (e.g. to rebuild your server), do (on another viable server):

# mt -t /dev/rmt/0mn fsf 1
# tar -xvf /dev/rmt/0m /var/opt/ignite/recovery/latest/manifest

Regards!

...JRF...

[Sajid_1]

a) Always have a recent recovery tape (make_tape_recovery) and a good full system backup.
b) Other than that you need to have atleast these information on files or in record:
LVM information (vgdisplay, lvdisplay, bdf, fstab etc)
Disk information (ioscan -fnC disk, pvdisplay etc)
Hardware details (ioscan -fn)
Network information (lanscan, netstat, netconf, hosts, NFS/NIS config files, nsswitch.conf etc)
Printer information (lpstat -t)
User account information(/etc/passwd, group, profiles, .rhosts etc)
Custom scripts (/sbin/init.d, application scripts etc)

gl

[Sean OB_1]

Let me clarify a bit. I know about the ignite manifest, how to make it etc.

I want to find out what information, assuming you didn't have ignite, you would want.

I have systems that are non HP/UX that we wouldn't have a manifest for, so I want to make sure that I'm collecting everything that would be necessary to rebuild those systems as well.

TIA

[A. Clay Stephenson]

In addition to the manifest, I always keep swlist outputs, bdf outputs, vgdisplay outputs, and ioscan -fn outputs.

If you are running databases with raw io, you also need a listing of those devices so that you can restore the exact paths.

Also, I suggest that you do a search for something called 'lvmcollect'. If it doesn;t contain everything you need, you can easily modify it.

[Sean OB_1]

Allen,

Ignite creates a "manifest" of your system for use in recovering it in the event of a disaster.

It's part of the make recovery process in ignite.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

One more is a kmtune or sysdef output.

[Sajid_1]

Some other commands you could run and keep in record:
# sysdef
# kmtune
# lsdev
# cat /etc/system
# swlist
# swlist -lfileset
# cat /etc/resolv.conf
# cat /usr/local/bin/*
# dmesg
# print_manifest
# landadmin -x ..options ..
# strings /etc/lvmtab

[Martin Johnson]

I would add to the list:

cat /etc/fstab
ll /dev/vg*

and the output of /usr/contrib/bin/lv_allocations if it is on your system.

HTH
Marty

[harry d brown jr]

Sean,

If you want to create a manifest of NON-HP systems, because Ignite isn't available on those servers, then here are your options:

AIX:
mksysb utility

Solaris:
jumpstart utility

Linux:
???

THIS is the GUIDE to compare system commands between AIX, HPux, Solaris, BSD, TRU64, and Linux:

http://unixguide.net/unixguide.cgi


live free or die
harry

[Tom Danzig]

FYI: Linux = mkcdrec

A utility to make recovery CD's using a standard CD-R or CD-RW burner. Works great!

[Cheryl Griffin]

Sean,
Here's some info you might want to keep:
ioscan -fn
vgdisplay -v (for all volume groups)
pvdisplay -v (for each disk)
lvdisplay -v (for each logical vol)
lvlnboot -v
cat /stand/system
lanscan
ifconfig
hostname -a
setboot
lsdev
lpstat -t
bdf
cat /etc/fstab
swlist

There are also scripts that have floated around for years like LVMCollect and SysInfo (which began life as internal only scripts). But if you contact a support person (i.e., Log a Support case or go use Web Collab (available from the Knowledge Base), you can have someone send you a copy.

Cheryl

[Christos Magdalinos · Accepted solution]

We have been using the cfg2html script for quite some time now ....
It covers everything

You can find it @
http://members.tripod.com/rose_swe/cfg/cfg.html