Entire system backup, please help!

[Chin Meng]

Thank in advance for all experts.

Here I have a question about the system backup.
I understand that HPUX 11 64bits provide many of commands for backup files like fbackup, cpio, tar, dump and vxdump. Confused abou the backup commands?

How frequently we need to do the backup?

Before doing the backup what the consideration ?

thank you to all

[Alexander M. Ermes]

Hi there.
Depends on the software you use. If you have databases running, you should do a daily backup.

For cpio look at these lines

#!/sbin/sh
# ============================================================================
# This script will cpio out all database files to the device
# given as Parameter 1
# ============================================================================
#
# set -x
today_=`date +'%y-%m-%d'`; export today_
#
LOG1=/usr/tmp/cpio_${today_}.1st; export LOG1
#
PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin
export PATH
exec > /usr/tmp/cpio_${today_}.log 2>&1
echo "Start Time is: `/bin/date`"
echo "Start Time is: `/bin/date`" >> ${LOG1}
#
#
find / /usr /var /opt /u010/opt -xdev -fsonly hfs -fsonly vxfs -depth -print | cpio -ocBv > /dev/rmt/0m 2
>> ${LOG1} &
first_cpio=$!; export first_cpio
#
wait $first_cpio

if test $? -ne 0; then
echo "Full Offline Backup did not complete successfully!"
fi
echo "End Time is: `/bin/date`"
echo "End Time is: `/bin/date`" >> ${LOG1}


If you need more, let me know.
Rgds
Alexander M. Ermes

[Paula J Frazer-Campbell]

Hi
The safest backup I have found is fbackup in that it will retry open files 5 times and as said before if you have a live database then backup everyday.

Paula

[Darrel Louis]

From the backup options you?ve specified I would go for fbackup.
When you need to recover the backups made with frecover is faster and better when you want to restore just a number of files.
A daily backup is recommended.
Also make a Ignite backup, to recover your OS fast.

[CHRIS_ANORUO]

Update the /etc/br/sam/fbackup_config file with the following:
blocksperrecord=128
checkpointfreq=256
readerprocesses=4
The use this line command to do a full system backup of your entire server except nfs files:
fbackup -f /dev/rmt/0m / -c /etc/sam/br/fbackup_config or use SAM which uses the file in its operation.

[Trevor Dyson]

as above ... go with fbackup.

fbackup is the only tool that comes with HP-UX that will back up files larger than 2GB.

make sure you application and database files are not being written to while fbackup is writing them to tape.

Yes fbackup will retry backing up a file up to 5 times if it is busy, this also means that the file could be written to the tape 5 times, if backing up a 1GB files that is being changed all the time it is being backed up then you waste 5GB of tape + you can not recover the file from the tape even though it appears on the index.

What to back up and how often? If you have unlimited time and money then backup everything every night. I suspect that you will have only a limited amount of time to back up the system each night and will have cost constraints for the use of tapes. A weekly full backup with daily incrementals is not a bad place to start.

You need to understand what your application does with its data files to determine how full and incremental backups can be achieved.

Providing a bit more info on your system will allow us to give you more specific advice:

What applications
What databases
What tape drives
What size tapes
How much data to back up

and how much data can the business afford to lose if the system is destroyed.

Cheers, Trevor

[Bruno DESQUESNE]

Hi,

The choices you mention are actually entry level methods. I would use them for non critical machines, like my workstation...

If it is a server, you should have a look at tools providing tape management, version choice at restore and so on. I use HP Omniback II, I think it is a complete and powerful tool.

Of course, for critical services, backup are performed on a daily basis with specific design to include database online backup.

Regards

[Dan Decker]

Fbackup is the quick and easies method. You can run it from the command line buildt from a script file or set it up in Sam and schedule it to run whenever.

If you have a system that has a database running 24 hours a day perhaps you may want to export that database to a file first and then run your backup that way you will acquire current data.

[Darrel Louis]

Hi,

Check on the following url for backup concepts.
http://ovweb.external.hp.com/lpe/doc_serv/

Concepts Guide and Administrative Guide.

The Concepts guide will describe some backup procedure in the appendix A.

The Administrative Guide Chapter 5

[Suhas_2]

Hi,
fbackup is the best option on any HP system.
1>Following syntax will take a file system backup...

/usr/sbin/fbackup -vf /dev/rmt/ -i / 2>/tmp/.

2> Secondly you can create a graph file as below..

i /usr1
i /usr2
i /usr3
e /usr4

"i" means include and "e" means exclude . This gives you
the freedom to selectively backup your system.
Let us say the name of the graph file is graph.txt, then the command will look like...

/usr/sbin/fbackup -vf /dev/rmt/ -g graph.txt 2>/tmp/

This way you can get a logfile, review it or send it as an e-mail using sendmail.

Hope this helps....

Suhas..

[Rita C Workman]

Whatever option you choose depends on your needs. If you have databases like Oracle or Sybase you want to ensure that are solidly backed up. If you have be up pretty much 24x7 then you need to look at backup software that will allow for Hot backups. We use OmniBack.
And one last (but I feel important) thought. Backups are done for the time you need to restore. To restore from fbackup and the other command level methods, requires a bit more to restore. You may want to consider for an easier restore to get backup software, that allows for quick/easy restores. Whatever backup software you choose, make sure you are comfortable with it. I've noticed many folks on this forum use a variety like OmniBack or Veritas Backup, etc.

/rcw

[nnf97]

Hi,
Keep a make_recovery tape handy for complete OS restore. update this tape whenever you make a system level change, adding new software, removing old ones, etc.
Apart from that the data which you have on your system needs to be backed up. This is a purely subjective territory. The rule of thumb is to back up everynight as incremental, and a full on the weekends.

The only reason for the nightly backup is that when people started thinking of taking backups in 1960's the only beings awake at that time apart from owls were the system admins. So, since the rest of the normal users were aslepp, the system admin could do what he chose, in this case he chose to backup systems. :)

The tools that you use for backup are another subjective issue. If you take the top 3-4 backup tools, they all do the same job, matter of preferences and some really really esoteric requirements.

Hope this helps. :)

Regards,
Nabeel