Help using fbackup and storing multiple files

[Adrian Sobers2]

Here is the situation. As part of our backup and recovery strategy, we use fbackup to copy our Oracle database files to tape. The command is:

/usr/sbin/fbackup -f /dev/rmt/0m – g graph

The graph file contains the entry of the file to be copied. I use one tape labeled "daily database backups". I would like to know if it is possible to use fbackup and store multiple days on the tape. Today I ran the command above, however when I ran the following command to verify that the files were copied:

/usr/sbin/frecover –rNv –f /dev/rmt/0m | more

I only see the listing for the files I copied today. Does fbackup just keep overwriting as opposed to appending? I would really like to keep more than one day on the tape. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks in ad

[Steven E. Protter]

We switch tapes nightly with your strategy.

Sunday we run a full backup.

The rest of the week we run incrementals on new tapes.

SEP

[Adrian Sobers2]

SEP,

Thanks for the response. I would like to know however if fbackup can just append files to the same tape rather than overwriting the previous contents. We have 72GB tapes and would waste too much space if fbackup keeps overwriting as is.

[John Palmer · Accepted solution]

Hi Adrian,

fbackup ALWAYS overwrites the tape.

If you want to append files, you'll have to use a different backup utility. Have you considered vxdump?

Regards,
John

[Adrian Sobers2]

Thanks John. I will look into vxdump.