Full Backup on HP-UX

[Manjunath Shastry]

I am planning a full backup of my System, I am using HP-UX 11.0. How can I go about this ?.

I am from AIX background and would appreciate your help.

[melvyn burnard]

A number of suggestions here:
1) get hold of the free software, either on your cd's or from http://software.hp.com, known as Ignite/UX and use the make_tape_recovery to do a full BOOTABLE backup of your root vg.

2) Use fbackup to do a full system backup.

[Brian M Rawlings · Accepted solution]

There are two issues to consider: system recovery and data recovery.

For system recovery (root/boot volume), create a golden image tape using HP's Ignite/UX command 'make_tape_recovery'. This command is well documented in this forum, please search for it and you will find everything you need to know. There is also a way to do a 'system image' depot on another server running ignite (disk/network restore, rather than tape-based), with 'make_net_recovery' and associated commands. Either works, I prefer tapes myself.

For data recovery, HP-UX has a built-in backup facility called 'fbackup' (with 'frestore' to restore). It works OK, but is not terribly friendly or easy to learn.

I would recommend an ISV backup solution like Omniback (now "Data Protector"), or Veritas Netbackup, or Legato Networker, or (there are others, you likely know them already). Of all those available, I only know of one you can download for free, with a fully functional 60-day trial license: Openview Data Protector:

here is the website.

http://openview.hp.com/products/dataprotector/seetrybuy/index.asp

You'll need to register, this is open to anyone, no special partner number needed. I think they just want to collect 'demographic info', to see how often people are downloading stuff, and so forth.

There are manuals here:

http://ovweb.external.hp.com/ovnsmdps/pdf/results/dp_50.htm

Best of luck, and welcome to HP-UX.

--bmr

[Helen French]

You could think of taking two backups:

1) System Ignite recovery backup: You need to download Ignite software from HP site and install it on the server. Once installed, take the Ignite backup (this will be useful to recreate the root VG in case if you loose):

# make_tape_recovery -a /dev/rmt/0mn -I -v -x inc_entire=vg00

You may need to update this tape every month or after a system upgrade/change.

2) Data backup: If you don't have a special backup software installed on the server (like Dataprotector, Netbackup or Legato), you can use the default 'fbackup'. If you are not familiar with this command, then use "SAM" and schedule your backup from "Backup and recovery" session. You can include all your file system in the list and specify the device name where you have the media set.

[Helen French]

For more detailed instruction about backup and recovery on HP-UX, read chapter 9 (backing up and restoring data):

http://www.docs.hp.com/hpux/onlinedocs/B2355-90672/B2355-90672.html

[CCIL]

Hi !
pls check you have the ignite Ux unstalled on your system. First yous hould take the ignite backup using , which will backup the volume group vg00. use the command make_tape_recovery -a /dev/rmt/Xmn -Av . this will create a bootable tape for you . it will backup all the volume group configuration files and also the it will backup the all the patches which are currently installed on your system.

For file system backup you can use the fbackup command , that can be taken thro" sam , choose Backup & restore option in the sam & then choose backup option which will invoke the fbackup in background , the backup can be customised i.e. you can include some files or exclude some files from a file systems. When you are backing up the root (/) filesystem make sure that you exclude all other mount points such as /var, /opt /usr etc

[YMJ]

To do entire backup

fbackup -f /dev/rmt/0m -i / -v ((0m Tape drive #, change it according to your machine))


or:
find / -print | cpio -oBv > /dev/rmt/0m

or:
tar cvf /dev/rmt/0m /


----------------------
use fbackup because it's HP specific, and has many useful features from other unix standard tools.

[Manjunath Shastry]

Thank you for the resposne and the detailed insight. With all your inputs, I have decided to prepare a Backup Policy this weekend and implement it.