fbackup and ftp question

[Jim Tropiano_1]

Question is : We backup are file system with fbackup, but during the backup window at a certain time 11pm - 11:45pm - FTPs to the Unix box are failing ( I have it is not the FTP service but when it goes to logon), I have a support user that told me that between that time, he was un able to logon.
The backup starts at 10pm and runs until midnight.
I am a newbie at Hp-UX and wondering if anyone had ideals on what I could be look at or for.
I would think the backup would allow people to login and ftp user to login..
Any help would be helpful.
This box is a k580 running 11.0..

[A. Clay Stephenson · Accepted solution]

Fbackup doesn't lock files or disallow logins or anything like that. That doesn't mean that the cron'ed script which executes fbackup might not do something to disable logins. That is the first place I would look. I do assume that fbackup is backing up to a local device; if backing up to a remote device, it's possible that the network load might be great enough to severely impact response times but that wouldn't stop them altogether. If neither of these appear to be the problem then you are going to have to look at your system with Glance while the backups are executing to see what else is happening.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

By the way, if I were going to disable logins during backups, the most straightforward method would be to add this line to /etc/default/secuity:
NOLOGIN=1

Now, if this entry is made in the security file AND a file /etc/nologin exist then only root is allowed to login. If the script which runs fbackup creates an /etc/nologin file and later removes it then that's your boy.

[Mohd Mohtar]

Hi Jim,

What kind of data do you back up (ordinary files, databases etc.)?

For your user issue, try scheduling the backup at a later time. However, if server required to be available most times to users, then an online backup is recommended.

Do a "man fbackup" for more information plus list of errors from fbackup can be obtained using;

dumpmsg /usr/lib/nls/C/fbackup.cat

if you just want to see the possible warning messages, use

dumpmsg /usr/lib/nls/C/fbackup.cat | grep -i warning.

This will also provide you with the fbackup error codes (the values in brackets) which can also be used to check the status of your backup.

cheers,

Mok