Is fbackup to a disk possible?

[Charlie Bulosan_1]

Hi,

Is it possible to do a fbackup to a disk?
i.e. #fbackup -f /dev/dsk/cxtxdx -0vi /

Usually the backup device is a tape, but I'd like to use a disk if possible. A tape drive and DDS tape are not available but I have an unused disk.

Many Thanks,
Charlie

[Vitek Pepas · Accepted solution]

I'm not sure about backing up directly to a disk, but you can create a filesystem and backup the file:
... -f /filesystem/backup_file ...

[Pete Randall]

Charlie,

Never tried it, but the fact that the man page says "Only magnetic tapes can be remote devices" implies to me that local devices can be tape or disk.


Pete

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Yes, in fact -f - writes to stdout which could even be a pipe so that your have other options as well. Note that fbackup will also write to a devive on a remote host so that that may suggest other options for you.

[Vitek Pepas]

I meant 'backup to the file'.

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi Charlie,

Although I've never done this a scan of the fbackup man page seems to indicate that one can do this. It appears to me that you need to direct the output to a file however & not a raw disk device - but I could be wrong. The reason seems to be that when *not* using tape devices, there are no EOF markers between sections (label, header,etc).
So you should create a VG/LV/FS structure as large as required & direct the output to a file within.

Rgds,
Jeff

[Charlie Bulosan_1]

Hi,

Thank you guys for a prompt response. Although I won't be doing a backup like that I might need it in the near future.

Thanks Again.
Charlie

[RolandH]

Hello Charlie,

iam not sure if I read this from the man page of backup.

"fbackup creates volumes with a format that makes duplication of volumes by dd impossible (see dd(1)). Copying an fbackup volume created on one media type to another media type does not produce a valid fbackup volume on the new media because the formats of volumes on raw magnetic tape, on a regular file, and on rewritable optical disks are not identical."

So in the context to Pete Randalls answer that can also mean do not a fbackup on remote rewritable optical disks.
So the only thing I would recommend you is "TRY AND ERROR". Try it with some unimportant files and try to recover them.


HTH
Roland