fbackup to another server

[Ray Allen_1]

Hi,

Trying to use fbackup to backup to another server on the same network. I created a filesysem (mounted) on destination server, add the source hostname to .rhosts file, and created a grahp file on the source server. When I run the following fbackup command, I am getting the error "block special output devices aren't supported"

fbackup -f nholwsn2:/dev/vg00/lwsn1backup -u0g /var/adm/fbackupfiles/graph -I /var/adm/fbackupfiles/index.backup
fbackup(1004): session begins on Wed Feb 1 15:32:37 2006
fbackup(3015): block special output devices aren't supported


Any ideas, suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

[Jeff_Traigle]

You're trying to backup to the block device for a logical volume. fbackup only writes to character (raw) devices, such as /dev/rmt/0m. It would probably work specifying the character device file for the LV:

fbackup -f nholwsn2:/dev/vg00/rlwsn1backup -u0g /var/adm/fbackupfiles/graph -I /var/adm/fbackupfiles/index.backup

[Chauhan Amit]

Hi Ray,

You need to use Raw (Character) device for the same , try this command:
#fbackup -f nholwsn2:/dev/vg00/rlwsn1backup -u0g /var/adm/fbackupfiles/graph -I /var/adm/fbackupfiles/index.backup

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Amit

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

fbackup will not back up to remote tape drives.

What you can do is set up an NFS or samba share on a remote server and use fbackup to back that up. It's kind of a reverse of what you are doing, but its done often and it works quite well.

SEP

[Tom Danzig]

SEP,

I am sure fbackup CAN use a tape drive on another system. From the fbackup man page:


There is slightly different behavior if remote devices are used. A device on the remote machine can be specified in the form machine:device. fbackup creates a server process from /usr/sbin/rmt on the remote machine to access the tape device. If /usr/sbin/rmt does not exist on the remote system, fbackup creates a server process from /etc/rmt on the remote machine to access the tape device. Only magnetic tapes can be remote devices. When remote DDS tape devices are used, the fast search marks capability is not used.

Try:
fbackup -f nholwsn2:/dev/rmt/0m -u0g /var/adm/fbackupfiles/graph -I /var/adm/fbackupfiles/index.backup

assuming the remote tape drive is 0m.

[Tom Danzig]

Further to above, I tried backing up to a remote systems tape drive and it worked fine. Just make sure you have remsh permission on the remote server.

[Bill Hassell]

fbackup can use a remote tape drive. The remote system must allow remsh/rlogin from the local system (ie, a working .rhosts file) and the remote system must be HP-UX. The syntax is:

fbackup -f remote_system:/dev/rmt/0m ...

The data from the local system is sent over the network to the remote system's tape drive. NOTE: the throughput will likely be significantly less than a local tape unless the LAN is extremely fast (GigE for instance). A low performance tape drive will be OK (DDS-2 or DDS-1) but a modern tape drive like a DLT-8000 or Ultrium 230 is too fast and will go into constant resyncs. This will reduce throughput to 1/10th to 1/100th of normal and increase wear on the drive.

To avoid data starvavtion and excess drive wear, you can use tar or fbackup to create an archive file on the remote server and then backup the result on the remote server. The downside is that you need a lot of extra disk space to hold the backup temporarily.