make_tape_recovery question

[Mike_Ca Li]

I have the following in as daily cron job:
/opt/ignite/bin/make_tape_recovery -v -A -d /dev/rmt/0m

However there is a folder (2004-11-24,06:05) created in /var/opt/ignite/recovery daily. Would that directory be needed when doing a recovery from tape or that folder can be deleted? I'm asking because that's filling up my /var FS
Thanks.

SERVER:/var/opt/ignite/recovery {230}> ls -l
total 48
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 Nov 24 08:21 2004-11-24,06:05
-rw-r--r-- 1 root sys 236 Nov 24 08:23 client_status
-rw-rw-rw- 1 root sys 7324 Dec 7 2003 config.recover
-rw-rw-rw- 1 root sys 7324 Dec 7 2003 config.recover.prev
-rw-r--r-- 1 root sys 555 Dec 7 2003 fstab
-r--r--r-- 1 bin bin 218 Jun 27 2003 group.makrec
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root sys 16 Nov 24 06:05 latest -> 2004-11-24,0
6:05
-r--r--r-- 1 bin bin 1971 Jun 28 2002 makrec.append
-r--r--r-- 1 root sys 955 Jun 27 2003 passwd.makrec
-rw-r--r-- 1 root sys 105 Nov 24 06:16 previews

[Pete Randall · Accepted solution]

Mike,

I believe that's just a "log" of the status of the make_tape_recovery's execution. I would suggest you review and discard.


Pete

[Sridhar Bhaskarla]

Hi,

It contains log and the files used by make_tape_recovery during the tape creation process. Only file that can be huge is flist but I don't think it can grow so much to fill up your var. It contains all the files backed by make_tape_recovery. See if you have any directories (such as /tmp, /var/tmp etc.,) with numerous small files.

-A will make ignite to backup all the VGs that contain the files/directories specified to include in the tape archive. There is no reason to include files/directories that are not part of OS but on the external VGs. External VGs can be easily reimported upon recovery.

You can delete this directory once you confirmed your make_tape_recovery.

-Sri

[Bernhard Mueller]

Mike,

please make sure you actually create a valid recovery tape.

in all folders that have a timestamp name there should be a file "recovery.log". This file should end with a line saying that it completed successfully (or with warnings).

In that case by default all but the last two of those directories would be deleted automagically on re-running make_tape_recovery and your /var/opt/ignite would *not* fill up!

the syntax has changed from make_recovery to make_tape recovery: -d gives a "description" and not the tape device, the tape device has to specified with -a and it has to be a no-rewind device (make_tape_recovery would complain if you specified "-a /dev/rmt/0m" while make_recovery did not complain but did not create a bootable tape then!

my recommendation is to use something like:
make_tape_recovery -I -x inc_entire=vg00 -x exclude=/tmp -a /dev/rmt/0mn

pls do a man make_tape_recovery and take a look at your recovery.log files mentioned above. If you need that tape and it does not work it will be too late to worry.

Regards,
Bernhard

[MarkSyder]

I'm a little puzzled - do you really need a new ignite backup every day? I do one immediately before and immediately after every kernel patch.

Mark Syder (like the drink but spelt different)

[Asad Malik]

This folder is not required when doing recovery from tape. However make ignite tape whenever there is a change to hardware on the system or change to software that sits on vg00.