Fbackup Help

[jswamy]

Hi,

I am new to HP UNIX and would like to know how I can take an incremental back using fbackup.

What I have to do is, if I take a backup of a particular location on a filesystem this week on a tape using fbackup, and then again take another backup of a differnt location on the same filesystem or another filesystem on the same tape next week, how would I go about doing this. I have understood the concept in the MAN page but not in detail since i am new.

WHat would I have to do to backup additional data on the tape at a later stage. I would appreciate it if some of you experts can give me the steps and commands to execute the same.

Thanks,

Swamy.

[Steven E. Protter]

This thread and the link within might help:
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=35722

From the man page

If fbackup is used for incremental backups, a database of past backups
must be kept. fbackup maintains this data in the text file
/var/adm/fbackupfiles/dates, by default. Note that the directory
/var/adm/fbackupfiles must be created prior to the first time fbackup
is used for incremental backups. The -d option can be used to specify
an alternate database file. The user can specify to update this file
when an fbackup session completes successfully.

The discussion is pretty long, but if you go through the man page carefully everything you need to know to set up a graph file and do incremental backups is there.

SEP

[radi_1]

Hi,
1- It is better and simpler to assigne one tape media for each file system.
2-for incremental backups;
-make a full backup on, say, monday:
#fbackup -f /dev/rmt/0m -0 -i /filesystem
-increment by repeating the following command on tue., wedn.,thur. and fri.:
-#fbackup -f /dev/rmt/0m -5 -i /filesystem.
3-repeat 1&2 each monday for every filesystem you want to backup using different tapes for each file system.
I hope this helps

[jswamy]

I think the steps given by Radi are fine. But considering the fact that I have to backup data from a differnt Filesystem and a totally differnt file or directory name, what wwould I do.

THis is my requirement basically becasue I use a 400 GIG tape out of which I backup only about 200 GIG onto it since my file system is 200 Gig. Then I would like to use the remaiing part of the tape to backup other data from another file system of about 150 GIG, at a later date.

Swamy

[Bill Hassell]

While it is reasonable to use the remaining tape for other unrelated backups, fbackup (and commercial backup programs) will never allow it. The very first tape command (after a status check) in fbackup is rewind. So appending additional backups onto the end of the tape is not possible with fbackup.

Re-using production backup tapes in this way is a very dangerous practice. Not only do you not know what might be on the tape (and where it is located such as append #2 or #3, etc), but just one mistake in positioning the tape can wipe out the entire tape. Record keeping is very critical and after a few weeks, such records can be a complete mess.

fbackup (unlike classic Unix tools) makes a complete index at the beginning of each tape which has a large number of advantages. It only taskes a few seconds to get a complete list of all files, and this index is used to determine how to reach any file in just a few minutes.

[jswamy]

I think a conclusion can be made that fbackup's are possible as one time, with the exception that incremental backups are possible to update already backed up files and addtional backups are not poosible with fbackup and also not advisable.

ALthough I am not in production environment. it will be better to maitain a policy to backup once onto a tape and update it at regular intervals.

THanks guys.

Swamy