fbackup without rewind?

[Mark Perry_1]

Can fbackup be used in such a way that it doesn't rewind the tape at the end or beginning of a run?

What I'm trying to do is run several fbackups one after another, writing to the same tape, so that the data from each run is stored in order, one after the other. So far, what has happened is that each run has overwritten the data from the previous run.

Thanks in anticipation

MP

[Duncan Edmonstone]

From the WARNINGS section of fbackup:

fbackup should not be used with no-rewind devices, for example,
/dev/rmt/0mn.


So I guess the answer is no, you can't do this...

HTH

Duncan

[Pete Randall]

It should work if you use the no rewind device file (i.e. /dev/rmt/0mn)

Good luck,
Pete

[Pete Randall]

Sorry, I was unaware of that warning. Open mouth, insert foot.

Pete

[James R. Ferguson · Accepted solution]

Hi Mark:

No, you can't. By design 'fbackup' starts by rewinding the tape.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Joseph A Benaiah_1]

Mark,

As previously stated, HP do not support fbackup with no rewind devices.

However consider this use of fbackup:

fbackup -g GRAPHFILE -c CONFIGFILE -v -f - | gzip | dd of=/dev/rmt/0mn obs=32k

A combination of fbackup and dd will allow you to hold multiple fbackups on a tape using the no rewind device.

You could recover the data as follows:

dd if=/dev/rmt/0mn ibs=32k | gzcat | frecover -xvi PATH/FILENAME -f -

I have tried this and it works although it is completely UNSUPPORTED BY HP.

Cheers,

Joseph

[Ian Dennison_1]

If the same server and data is to be backed up over several days and appended to the tape, perhaps you could use the Incremental feature of 'fbackup', which will mean each new Tape requires a full backup first, followed by the incrementals.

If the data to be backed up is all on one server and can be backed up at the same time, can you expand the Index File being used to 'fbackup'?

Share and Enjoy! Ian

[Mark Perry_1]

Thanks to you all for your responses. Much appreciated.

Cheers
MP