HP-UX 11.11 OS backups

[jmckinzie]

Ok, we are trying to reduce our backup footprint. If you had to choose the bare minimum amount of filesto be backed up for simply restoring the OS (after an ignite) which ones would you choose?

Basically, we are working on creating a nightly/weekly exclude list to excluded from being backed up.

[James R. Ferguson · Accepted solution]

Hi Jody:

> If you had to choose the bare minimum amount of filesto be backed up for simply restoring the OS (after an ignite) which ones would you choose?

Well, certainly anything that is a volatile configuration file. The '/etc/passwd' and/or '/etc/shadow' files are prime examples. I'd certainly backup your user's 'home' directories ('/home' or the symbolic links to which anyone might point).

I think *you* need to decide what you can and can't afford to backup given the frequency and circumstaces with which you perform your Ignite backups.

You don't say what backup software you are using, either. One way to determine the "candidate" list would be to look for files in the filesystems of vg00 that have been modified *since* your last Ignite backup just *before* you would make your next:

# find / -xdev -type f -mtime -14

The above would find all files in the root directory that had been modified during the last 14-days, for example. This would include the '/etc/ and '/sbin' directories that are not mountpoints unto themselves, but skip crossing into mounted directories like '/usr' and 'opt'.

Regards!

...JRF...

[jmckinzie]

This is for netbackup....

So far, the files I want to keep are:

/usr/local/bin
/etc
/tcb
/.*
/home*
/stand
/var/adm

[jmckinzie]

I figured this out using the information provided.