fbackup warning question

[Randy Hagedorn]

Hi,

I received the following warning from fbackup. Was the file copied to tape with a warning, or was it skipped and not copied to tape?

fbackup(3009): WARNING: File number 154 (/u03/oradata/ORD/user03.dbf)
was not successfully backed up

Thanks in advance.
Dewy

[Arockia Jegan]

Actually the file was backed up. But while backing up the file, it was accessed/modified by some one at the same time. That's what you are getting this message.

[Sanjay_6]

Hi Dewy,

I think it was not backed up. If there is a fbackup log file, have a look at that file to determine if it was backed up.

Hope this helps.

Regds

[Christopher McCray_1]

Hello,

I have received those errors before and it was because those files were opened/accessed by a process (oracle) during the backup.

Hope this helps

Chris

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Dewy:

Sorry, the file was *not* backed-up.

If a file is changing as it is being moved to tape, you will see a warning "File number...was active during attempt...". This is OK and indicates that a retry of the copy will be attempted. IF the 'maxtretries' is exhausted, then the error is "not successfully backed up". In fact, the file is marked on the tape as "bad" and if you use 'frecover' to try to retrieve it, the 'frecover' will fail.

Regards!

...JRF...

[steven Burgess_2 · Accepted solution]

Duwayne

You can set maxretries through the use of a config file when using fbackup

Heres one supplied by Bill Hassell that we now use on a lot of sites

if your config file is in /tmp called fbackupconf

blocksperrecord 256
records 32
checkpointfreq 1024
readerprocesses 6
maxretries 5
retrylimit 5000000
maxvoluses 200
filesperfsm 2000

fbackup -v -f /dev/rmt/0m -c /tmp/fbackupconf -i /

Hope this helps

Steve

[Ian Lochray]

Dewy,
unless you do something with your Oracle system (shut it down or put the tablespace into backup mode) the data file will remain active so setting maxretries will not help.

[Frank Slootweg]

Adding to the other responses:

Besides the warning message you posted, there was at least one *other* message, referring to the *same* file (i.e. file number 154 in this case). *That/those* message(s) will say *why* the file was not backed up.

As others mentioned, it probably was an 'active' file, i.e. a file which was modified/written_to between the start and end of the backup (of that file). See "active" in the fbackup manual page.

[Ray Carlson]

Additionally, if the file is too large, > 5000000, it will not even attempt to back it up again. We shutdown Oracle just long enough to tar all the database files into a single compressed tar file. Then when we back up the system, we exclude the database files, which may be busy, and backup the tar file, which is not busy. We also do a weekly export of the database files, which is backed up in case we want to recover a single table without having to restore the entire database with an old copy.