fbackups using remote device

[oscar munoz_1]

We have 2 servers.#1 and #2. The tape drive on #1 is damaged. We are running sam in #1 but using the tape drive on server#2. The process is very slow which is expected. How ever after the backups finished; we compared the number of files on the tape with the numbers of files that were to be backed up which is found in the br_index.full file in the var/sam/log directory. The numbers on tape are smaller than the ones on the index file and sam gave no errors. Why does this happen or what could be the root cause?

[Bill Hassell · Accepted solution]

fbakup makes a list of all the files to backup as it starts. That list is then written to the begining of the tape. Then the backup begins. But because you are running the backup while the system is busy, many temporary files will be removed during the long backup period. When fbackup tries to find the removed file, it fails and writes a special record on the tape indicating that the file was not found. The directory cannot be updated because it has already been written. Use frecover -N to check the actual contents of the tape. The missing temp files will be reported.