fbackup(1428): error in expanding output file pattern

[Andrew.Rollins]

When I try an fbackup of / but try and exclude certain paths (e.g. /home) I receive the following error message:

fbackup(1428): error in expanding output file pattern

Can I dump / but exclude paths further down?

TIA.

[Jash_1]

I have not seen that error before, but yes you should be able to exclude directories further down the path.

What command did you use? What user are you?

[Andrew.Rollins]

The command is below, and the user is root. I have deliberately split the command onto separate lines.
/usr/sbin/fbackup -f
/net/fortress/d2d2t/20080312/yyz1.root.fbackup
-0 -i / -e /tmp -e /home/FASLapp
-e /export/home/oracle -e /home/oracle8i
-e /opt -e /usr -e /var -e /stand

Further investigation shows that the following command doesn't work either. And therefore it appears to have nothing to do with the -e options:
/usr/sbin/fbackup -f
/net/fortress/d2d2t/20080312/yyz1.root.fbackup
-0 -i /

Other fbackups do work from that server to the same remote path so it doesn't appear to be a permissions thing on the NFS server.

TIA.

[Jash_1]

Andrew,

I have just managed to replicate the error on my local server, so I am looking into the problem.

[Shrikant Lavhate]

Hi Andrew,

Yes you can exclude paths down in fbackup.
But why you want to run fbackup for / ? For root FS backup i.e. system backup Ignite is the best option. But still you want to proceed with fbackup then you need to use graph file for that purpose. Graph file is used to state which path is to exclude or include.

For example
/
/home/test_user
/var

this is directory structure and you want to take fbackup of / excluding /home/test_user then prepare graph file like:

#vi test.gr
________________________
i /
e /home/test_user
________________________

Above shows content of graph file.
Where Prefix path with i you want to include in backup and e for them you want to exclude.

Then run fbackup command with -g option. like:
#fbackup -g

-=ShRi=-

[Jash_1 · Accepted solution]

It worked when I got the correct output file. Is there a typo in you output file, or is the remote path temporarily unavailable.

My command that worked was:-

fbackup -f -i / -e /var

Seemed to be ok from then.

[Andrew.Rollins]

Jash, you might have struck it on the head there as at the moment (though I could previously), I can't access the remote filesystem.

I'll try again and report if I get the error when the remote filesystem is available.

Thank you.

[Andrew.Rollins]

Thanks to both of the people to replied to my question. There were in fact two problems:
1. The filename I was trying to write to on one server had a / part way though (it was meant to be the 'basename' of the filesystem being dumped. Only when dumping the root partition you get / ! This caused the system to think that it was a folder name and it couldn't find that !
2. One of the systems I was testing on didn't have nfs.client running and therefore couldn't get to the remote NFS filesystem.

Regards,
Andrew.

[Andrew.Rollins]

As mentioned in my previous post. The 1428 error was being reported because the output file couldn't be opened. This was due to two reasons, operator error and a lack of nfs.client.