how to verify the make_tape_recovery backup on dds tape

[apple]

dear hpux guru,
i have one tape with no date. only got the hostname. how to verify the content of the make_tape_recovery is good or not? how to verify the content.
would appreciate your approach towards the system backup? how frequent do u perform the backup. how do u ensure the backup is good. currently we are backing up when we want to activity to the rack and after major changes. is this a good approach.
hope to hear from you. thank you.

[Aneesh Mohan]

Hi,

Please try check_recovery .

Thanks ,

Aneesh Mohan

[Shrikant Lavhate]

Hi,

Try
#mt /dev/rmt/0m status

Where /rmt/0m is tape address.

>how frequent do u perform the backup.
Depends on what data your server holds. If its dynamic and critical then you can backup it on daily or weekely basis. Most of the backups are scheduled weekly and at night.

[apple]

dear sir,
how to use the check_recovery? i tried to use man check_recovery but it says No manual entry for check_recovery.
when i issue
mt -f /dev/rmt/0mn status
Drive: HP C7438A
Format:
Status: [0]
File: 0
Block: 0
i can see the status of the tape, what is the value above the indicate the data/backup is good or not. the file is 0.
hope to hear from you. thank you

[Shrikant Lavhate]

Hi,

Looks like your tape is empty.


#mt -f /dev/rmt/1m status
Drive: QUANTUM DLT8000
Format:
Status: [0]
File: 0
Block: 0

This is for my frewsh empty tape.

[Shrikant Lavhate]

Also you can give a try with
#tar tvf /dev/rmt/1m
to see data on tape.

[TTr · Accepted solution]

> AM: Please try check_recovery

The correct command name is check_tape_recovery. However this command checks a recovery tape that was made in the same server to determine if a new recovery tape is needed. It might prove that the tape is a recovery tape.

> SL: Also you can give a try with
#tar tvf /dev/rmt/1m

That would work if the tape was a regular tar tape.

There are two ways to check if a tape is an ignite tape.

One is to boot from it and if it boots up you know you have a recovery tape. At one point right after the "INSTALL" program is loaded it displays the OS version and the date that the recovery tape was created. Of course you need to have an available server and you don't need to go through the recovery process so it will not blow away your existing system disks.

A second way is to use tar. The recovery tape has 2 tape files on it, a boot file and a recovery archive file. So you need to skip over the first tape file (boot) and check with tar the contents of the second file (recovery archive).
# mt -f /dev/rmt/0m rew
# mt -t /dev/rmt/0mn fsf 1
# tar -xvf /dev/rmt/0m filename
The first command rewinds the tape, the second skips 1 file (skip the boot file) and the third runs tar. Note the use of the no-rewind tape device in "0mn" in the second command.
Of course this does not prove that the first file on the tape is the boot file but it is a good indication. You can also test if the first file in NOT a tar file by
# mt -f /dev/rmt/0m rew
# tar -tvf /dev/rmt/0m
If you get an error this means that the first tape file is not a tar file which means that most likely it is a recovery tape.

[apple]

dear sir,
interesting.thank you for your reply. sir, would really appreciate you can shed lights
1. "That would work if the tape was a regular tar tape" does it mean the regular backup is file system or vg backup other than vg00. can i backup vg03 using tar make_tape_recovery?

2. "There are two ways to check if a tape is an ignite tape." what does it mean by ignite backup? is it make_tape_recovery one
3. i'm backing up vg00 using make_tape_recovery inside that tape. but when i use this command to see the the backup items, it says:
# tar -tvf /dev/rmt/0mn
Tar: tape blocksize error

hope to hear from you. thank you

[apple]

dear sir,
A.
if i want to backup these mount points:

1. vg03, which contains /appl
2. vg02 which contains /u01
3. vg01 which contains /users

can i use either of these 2 command:
1.
fbackup -f /dev/rmt/0m -i /appl /u01 /users

2.
tar -cvf /dev/rmt/0m /appl /u01 /users

can we specify multiple of mount points to be backed up and do i need to use /dev/rmt/0mn or /dev/rmt/0m


B:
if we have the existing file backup inside the tape, will it overwrite our content or appendable. how can we know how much left from our dds tape. we are using dds4.


C. once completed the /appl, /u01 and /users backup, i can verify the content of the backup using this command:

# mt -f /dev/rmt/0mn rew
# mt -t /dev/rmt/0mn fsf 1
# tar -tvf /dev/rmt/0mn


hope to hear from you. thank you.

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

The only way to be sure a make_tape_recovery backup tape will work is to test it.

All other commands provide you piece of mind but do not really do the job. Taking the tape to a DR center and using it and dealing with the issues is the way to be sure.

As to including or excluding certain volume groups the man page for the command is pretty good.

-x inc_entire=vg00 -x exclude=/home

You can back up anything you want.

Caveat: This tool can not get clean copies of Oracle or other databases. IF the database is down and sitting on a file system the copy will be clean.

If the database is up and there are no transactions going on, recovery is possible. If the database is up and there are transaction writes happening, the backup is useless.

For databases, this is the wrong tool.

A normal backup strategy includes using make_tape_recovery for vg00, the boot volume and other tools for your data.

SEP

[apple]

dear sir,
does it means we need to use the fbackup instead?
fbackup -f /dev/rmt/0m -i /appl /u01 /users

u01 is where our oracle home is? do we need to treat it as database or normal file system?

can we backup multiple mount points?

hope to hear from you. thank you