fbackup & nonrewinding

[Roel Villerius]

Hi,

I want to backup two hp's on the same tape drive using fbackup. Everything work's fine, the first access the tape drive on the second etc. Only when I backup the first machine on the second machines tape drive using the no rewinding device (/dev/rmt/0mnb) everything works fine. Then when I start on the second machine an fbackup I get the message: "the tape is not at the beginning, rewinding it"
And the first fbackup backup is overwritten!
So is it possible to put two (or more) fbackup sessions behind each other on tape? And if it?s possible what am I doing wrong?

command I use on the first machine (without tape drive):
fbackup -0vi /opt/http -f katrien:/dev/rmt/0mn
and on the machine with tape drive:
fbackup -0vi /opt/java1.2 -f /dev/rmt/0mn

[Vincenzo Restuccia]

I think fbackup -0vi /opt/http -f katrien:/dev/rmt/0mn is wrong beaucose the DAT not is a file system,try with NFS.

[Thierry Poels_1]

Hi,
sorry, this is not supported.
fbackup will ALLWAYS rewind before it starts to backup.
You will have to use a workaround:
- fbackup ... | cpio ... : pipe output of fbackup to cpio
- fbackup -n : also fbackup NFS mount points, and mount filesystems of other system
- user other software : tar, cpio, omniback, ...
- ...

good luck,
Thierry.

[Manuel P. Ron]

Is not possible with fbackup to append files to the same backup tape. You can use 'cpio' or 'tar' with -r option or 'dump' or 'vxdump' commands to get the task right.

[Larry Basford]

I don't use fbackup for that reason. It's too cumbersom and slow to restore.
We use vxdump vxrestore. It comes with all systems and can be used to a file on another system for a quick move if needed.

rvxdump and rvsrestore for remote systems
vxdump makes the most efficient use of the tape.
It works on a filesystem basis and with interactive mode you can quickly recover a single file if needed.
We use it as an unattended backup in a script
/usr/sbin/vxdump -0 -f /dev/rmt/1mn -u /data
/usr/sbin/vxdump -0 -f /dev/rmt/1mn -u /
/usr/sbin/vxdump -0 -f /dev/rmt/1mn -u /var
/usr/sbin/vxdump -0 -f /dev/rmt/1mn -u /usr
/usr/sbin/vxdump -0 -f /dev/rmt/1mn -u /tmp
/usr/sbin/vxdump -0 -f /dev/rmt/1mn -u /opt
/usr/sbin/vxdump -0 -f /dev/rmt/1mn -u /home

with mt -t /dev/rmt/1mn rewind and some error trapping

it will also do incrimentals of some for us on the weekend on the same tape.
mt -t /dev/rmt/1mn offline
will take it off line when it's done and the tape is ready to be changed (and prevents over writing)
vxrestore -if /dev/rmt/1mn
Puts you in interactive mode to select and restore only what you want. (be sure to be in the right directory ,it restores full paths)
Give it a try and compare to fbackup recovery.
It's much faster and very effecient.
If you check the HP-UX System Administration Tasks manual Hp Part No. B2355-90079
sectioin 9-12 Backup and Restoring Data it gives a good comparison of backup/recovery utilities.
For non hsf use dump/restore the same commands