Question on System Backups

[James Crosby]

Hi. As a relatively new HPUX person, I have a couple of questions about
backing up my system. I have a C1533 DDS DAT drive and I'm running 10.01. I'm
getting ready to install some patches and do a little date testing and I would
like to make sure that I have created a backup of EVERYTHING I possibly can.

How do I create a bootable tape?
Is a full system backup enough?
Or do I need to take other steps to back up the OS?

I have a single machine, standalone system.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated by this HPUX newbie. :)

James

[Neil Gast_1]

Make two backups: one standard tar backup of your entire OS, and one
make_recovery image. See the man page for make_recovery(1M) for additional
information.
You can also check out the Ignite/UX home page for information. See attached
link.

MrNeil

[Alan Riggs_1]

If your server is configured as an ignite depot, tou can combine the steps into
a single bootable "golden image" tape which can be used to rebuild your entire
system in case of catastrophic failure. I highly recommend this as an eventual
solution, though if you are unfamiliar with the ignite product you will want to
study and experiment a bit before implementing. In that case, the full backup
and minimal make_recovery is the way to go.

[Paul Heffels_1]

Hi James,

You said you were going to do some date testing. I asume you want to do a
millenium test, right? You might want to check out the URL in the link box. It
points to the y2k information you might be interested in. From there you can
follow the links that are appropriate for your situtation and find out exactly
what patches you need to install.

Good luck.

[Paul Mccleary_2]

A good way is to use the make_recovery command to make a bootable tape. I
would also recommend that you tar cvf all of your data onto another tape.
Never can be too safe!!

Then start with the patching - Look at HP's Y2K pages, I know one of the latest
releases is the Sept General Release Patch Bundle (replaces the extension s/w
CDs) and contains most of the Y2K patches. But as you have an older o/s I'd
definitely have a good read thru all the Y2K info on the site. After patching
create a swlist.out file and direct the output of swlist into the file. You
can then upload it to HP and test it using their Y2K Support Tool - it's not
brilliant, but is well worth using as it at least makes you think about all the
apps on your system, as well as the core o/s.

Hope this helps.