Image Backup on HP-UX

[Oliver Schiinke]

How I do to make a full system image backup from a tape on HP-UX?

[Mel Burslan]

/opt/ignite/bin/make_tape_recovery -I -v \
-x inc_entire=vg00 \
-a /dev/rmt/0mn

assuming /dev/rmt/0mn is your tape drive device file.

make sure you have a backup of non-system volume groups if you have any, using a different backup solution, like netbackup, legato, dataprotector, or even fbackup. The command above only creates a system image and creates the valume group information for the non-system VGs, not the VGs and LVOLs underneath these VGs. You will need to do it after the system restore.

you can use the slow and painful ignite process to create a full image of the system but it is not advised, as follows:

/opt/ignite/bin/make_tape_recovery -I -v \
-x inc_entire=vg00 \
-x inc_entire=vg01 \
...
(fill in as necessary)
...
-x inc_entire=vgN \
-a /dev/rmt/0mn

be prepared to span the image on multiple tapes.

[Steven E. Protter]

Mel's instructions will back up vg00 and LVOL configuration.

It will not back up any open databases. If databases are down and you include their volume groups, you can successfully back up entire systems.

Its very important that lvol configuration correct or Ignite will run a long time and then fail to complete the archive.

SEP

[Oliver Schiinke]

Ok Mel, now... how can I visualize the contents of a tape with the backup file system?

Thank's

[Oliver Schiinke]

Ok Steve, thanks for tip...

[Mel Burslan]

Oliver,

I could not quite understand your question but if you are wondering how you can verify if this is a good image or not, well, there is no surefire way of telling this other than booting a very similar, crash and burn server from the tape and rebuilding it with the data at hand. It is a very expensive way of ensuring data integrity.

Also, a little lesser safe way of cheking the integrity of your tape is to examine the file

/var/opt/ignite/logs/makrec.log1

and looking for the section (most probably the last part if you are doing this right after make_recovery completes) related to your process and making sure you see something like "Ended Unsuccessfully" or something very similar to this, indication a successful completion.

If you are asking how you can actually see the content of your tape, regardless of success of the procedure, then you have to rewind it, skip the LIF section (the section that lets your server boot from the tape) then running a tar command against the tape. With my same assumption about your tape drive device file, the commands for this activity should be (in this order)

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

hope this helps