fbackup doesn't work

[Ahmad Munawwar]

When entered the command below to do backup, nothing happen, i mean immediately i got command line prompt.

# /usr/sbin/fbackup -f /dev/rmt/0m -2 ???g
/opt/sdp/snapadm/etc/backup/daily_sdp_bck_graph
#

Please advise.

[Niraj Kumar Verma]

Hi,

You need to define a graph file name after the -g option.

Since there is no pgraph file defined, this means there is nothing to takebackup so you get a command prompt.

Do read the man pages

=============================
-g graph graph defines the graph file. The graph file is a text
file containing the list of file names of trees to be
included or excluded from the backup graph. These
trees are interpreted in the same manner as when they
are specified with the -i and -e options. Graph file
entries consist of a line beginning with either i or e,
followed by white space, and then the path name of a
tree. Lines not beginning with i or e are treated as
an error. There is no default graph file. For
example, to back up all of /usr except for the subtree
/usr/lib, a file could be created with the following
two records:

i /usr
e /usr/lib
==============================

-Niraj

[Printaporn_1]

Hi,

Try change -2 to -0 first.
does it backup ?

[Ahmad Munawwar]

Hi Niraj,

The filename is daily_sdp_bck_graph and located at /opt/sdp/snapadm/etc/backup/
Contents of daily_sdp_bck_graph file:

#########################################
i /opt/sdp/snapadm/etc
e /opt/sdp/snapadm/etc/install
i /opt/sybase/home
i /opt/sybase/DS/interfaces
i /opt/sybase/DS/SYB_SDP1.cfg
i /opt/sybase/RS/REP/install/SYB_SDP1_RS.cfg
i /dbdumps

###########################################

I run the command in multiuser mode, it was working fine previously. I do backup daily (incremental backup).

[Niraj Kumar Verma]

Hi,

can you please check the system date and time .

try touch to any file withing the backup data tree and use tho -0 instead of -2.

Can you also verify whether
/var/adm/fbackupfiles/dates
is getting created for the current date???

-Niraj

[Ed Sampson]

Try running with the -v option to generate more info.

[Ahmad Munawwar]

On 26/4/02, when we were doing our weekly
maintenance, we found that the SDP1 weekly O/S
backup failed. After entering the command
/usr/sbin/fbackup -f /dev/rmt/0m -1 -g \
/opt/sdp/snapadm/etc/backup/daily_sdp_bck_graph, the screen will automatically goes to command prompt. On 29/4/02, during daily maintenance activities, the SDP1 daily backup also failed. After further investigation we found that the fbackup file is zerorize (0 bytes). Then we copied the same file from identical machine. When tried to do O/S backup on SDP1, it is a success.

Q1. How the fbackup file can be zerorized ?
Q2. What are the steps to avoid these from
happening again ?
Q3. Can other users than 'root' run the backup
commands ?

[Michael Tully]

Hi,

Your 'fbackup' binary was zero?
/usr/sbin/fbackup

Some steps to take:
Make sure that this file has the
permissions of only 555 meaning it can't
easily be written over. Change the 'root'
password on your system regularly.
Implement 'sudo' or restricted SAM (sam -r)
if operators need to do tasks.
Yes other users can use 'fbackup'. To prevent
this situation, look at the restricted tools
as above or change the permissions of the
binary to be 500.

~Michael~

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi Ahmed,

Can't tell whether you mean the graph file or the fbackup command itself was zero bytes.
But regardless a file can be "zeroed" by:

1) > /path/to/filename
2) The FS goes 100% used at a
time when the file is being written to (rare but happens)
3) cp /dev/null /path/to/filename
4) inode table corruption

There are probably several other scenarios - but these come to mind.

Rgds,
Jeff

[Ahmad Munawwar]

Hi,

Yes, the fbackup binary was "zeroed". Do we have any method to find in the system what actually happen to the binary file (fbackup).
It is difficult to say that this file was
"zeroed" by command null. The file has already 555 permission. I will change the file permission to 500.

I agreed with you that the 'root' password have to be regularly change.

Please advise.

Regards
Munawwar