fbackup and the root directory

[Lisa Sorbo]

I have 2 questions.
Q1)
I've recently moved from a 10.20 server to a 11.0 64bit server. the old graph file for we used with fbackup had the following entry:
i /
to backup things in the root directory
it was followed by a list of dirs/filesystems for additional backup.

I tried including " / " on a SAM interactive backup and it seemed like it tried to back up
ALL filesystems, not just the stuff under the root.
am I imagining that this is what happens or has this really changed ?

or is it different when going interactive under SAM vs. running fbackup directly with a graph file?

Q2)
2nd question about graph files
checking my understanding of include and exclude statments - if I have files in all these locations:
/users1/dir1/subdir1/ssd1
/users1/dir1/subdir1/ssd2
/users1/dir2/subdir1
/users1/dir2/subdir1/ssd1
/users1/dir2/subdir1/ssd2
/users1/dir2/subdir2/ssd1
/users1/dir2/subdir2/ssd2

if I want to avoid backing up /users1/dir1/subdir1/ssd2 and /users1/dir2/subdir2/ssd2
do I just specify:
i /users1
e /users1/dir1/subdir1/ssd2
e /users1/dir2/subdir2/ssd2

and get everything under /users1 except those two subdirs and their contents ?


thanks,
Lisa

[Bryan D. Quinn · Accepted solution]

Hi Lisa,

Answer 1:

All file systems are under root. Therefore if you fbackup -i / that will grab everything. As for the differences between 10.20 and 11.x, I don't know that this behavior would be different but I could be wrong. I know the fbackups I do, when I use just / that gets all of my file systems...other than the nfs file systems which have to be specifically included.

Answer 2:

Yes if you have the following:
i /users1
e /users1/dir1/subdir1/ssd2
e /users1/dir2/subdir2/ssd2

This will backup everything in /users1 except for those two excluded files.

Hope this helps!
-Bryan

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Lisa:

A graph with only "i /" would backup everything. Mounted filesystems would be included.

With regard to your second question, yes, you are correct. See the 'fbackup' man pages for an example, too.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Lisa Sorbo]

thanks.
I guess the old graph file (not made by me)confused me because it had:
i /
i /user1
i /user2
i /user3
i /user4
i /tmp
i /var
i /opt
i /stand --- etc.

and I thought - well then "i /" must not be doing what I think (everything) but instead must mean "just the root" - cuz otherwise all those other lines are just redundant.

glad to hear that it is really what I thought.
thanks.
so if I really want everything but those 2 subdirs I would say:
i /
e /users1/dir1/whatever
e /users1/dir2/whatever

and if I wanted just UNIX OS stuff and not any of my user file dirs i would put:
i /
e /user1
e /user2
e /user3 -- etc.

thanks again.
Lisa

[Bill Hassell]

It is VERY important to NOT restore system exectuables from your 10.20 backup tape onto the new 11.0 64bit system, and especially NOT to restore /dev, /usr/lib and most of /etc as these are revcode-dependent files. As mentioned, i / means backup everything including NFS and even CDROMs! So for a general backup, you would exclude CDROM mountpoints and NFS mountpoints. fbackup reads the rules in sequential order so to backup "everything except" start with the include everything item, then exclude specific directories.

[Lisa Sorbo]

thanks Bill.
I was not even thinking of restoring OS from 10.20 to 11.0 - just looking at the cron job that had been running on the 10.20 and trying to understand what the heck it was intended to do

we don't keep the CD-ROM mounted and don't use NFS but I'll keep those points in mind.

also - thanks for answering the unanswered question of does fbackup run through the graph file in sequnce or draw it all in and then make logical sense of it -- thanks again.

Lisa

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Lisa:

'fbackup' does not "care" what order 'includes' and/or 'excludes' appear in a graph file. In reality, the includes are expanded and then the exclusions applied.

Regards!

...JRF...