Restore From Tape Paper

[Rob Smith]

Hello,

Does anyone know where I can find instructions or a white paper on how to recover a system from tape?

Regards,
Rob

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Rob:

Do you mean an Ignite recovery as in a Disaster Recovery onto a virgin server?

Regards!

...JRF...

[A. Clay Stephenson]

I hope that you mean an Ignite recovery.

Search docs.hp.com for 'Ignite-UX Administration Guide'.

http://docs.hp.com/cgi-bin/fsearch/framedisplay?top=/hpux/onlinedocs/B2355-90749/B2355-90749_top.html&con=/hpux/onlinedocs/B2355-90749/00/00/1-con.html&toc=/hpux/onlinedocs/B2355-90749/00/00/1-toc.html&searchterms=Ignite-UX%7cAdministration%7cGuide&queryid=20020621-080319

[Rob Smith]

Sorry, disaster recovery onto a reinstalled system.

Rob

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi (again) Rob:

You need to be more specific. "Disaster recovery onto a reinstalled system" suggests that you used Ignite (I hope) to rebuild your vg00. Now, if you have different hardware, because you are at a remote DR site, you want guidance on establishing volume groups, logical volumes, etc.? Or, do you want guidance on filesystem restoration (via 'tar'? via 'fbackup'?, etc.)?

Regards!

...JRF...

[Rob Smith]

Hello Again,

Sorry I definately need to be more specific. What I am looking for is instructions and guidelines on how to restore a system from scratch in case Ignite-UX, for whatever reason, does not work. I realize then I would have to reinstall the operating system but after that then what? What is the best way to restore? Restore everything from tape at once? Or are there certain things that have to be restored first? Etc. Any help would be appreciated. This is just for my knowledge as I have never had to do this before.

Regards,
Rob

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Rob:

Ignite shouldn't fail unless you have a bad tape and then you would use your secondary copy ;-)

By way of providing a general answer to you last question (i.e. in the absence of an Ignite restoration), this really comes down to cold-installing the OS from the CORE CDROM. Adding any codewords for (HP) Applications (e.g. Online JFS, MirrorDisk/UX, etc.). Applying these application products. Applying the latest SupportPlus Quality Pack and Hardware enablement bundles and Support Tools (EMS, STM).

If the only corruption or destruction you had was in vg00, at this point you could 'vgimport' your non-vg00 volume groups and all would be well again. If not, as for instance because you were at a remote D/R site, then you would recreate your volume groups, logical volumes, filesystems and reload their data from backup media.

Having had to do a cold-install, would mean, of course, that you would have to configure networking components, etc. '/sbin/set_parms' would offer the most assistance here.

Too, you would want to load from backup, critical configuration files, like /etc/passwd, etc.

Needless to say, the purpose of a sound Ignite recovery tape obviates many of the painful, time-consuming parts of the above.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Mike Hassell]

Rob,

You should rely on your make_recovery tapes for this purpose as it is a very solid product that ensures a proper recovery of the system. To ensure that your make_tape_recovery tapes are solid you can do a number of things, such as:

1. Review the logs after you create a make_tape_recovery, typically found in /var/opt/ignite/logs/makrec.logl

2. Make copies of your make_tape_recovery tapes, using 'dd'.

3. And of course, test your tapes regularly with a true DR test plan. If you can't afford to travel to an offsite DR site, try recovering on any additional HP9000 hardware you may have to simulate a full DR recovery. If you don't have available resources to do that, then just simply try recovering a few test files from the make_tape_recovery tapes to ensure they are solid.

Hope that helps.

-Mike

[Mike Hassell]

Rob,

I forgot to provide this link in my last post:

http://docs.hp.com/hpux/onlinedocs/B2355-90749/B2355-90749.html

The above should provide answers to any questions you may have about how to properly use the Ignite-UX product.

-Mike

[harry d brown jr]

Wow, I almost died because I read the title as

restore from paper tape

that brought back visions :-)


If your make recovery tape is toast, and you don't have another backup then there isn't much to do but rebiuld the system from scratch - and pray like hell you remember how you had the server set up.

I advocate doing as many make_recovery's as you can schedule. I'd like to see them done daily.

live free or die
harry
live free or die
harry

[Rob Smith]

"Wow, I almost died because I read the title as restore from paper tape that brought back visions :-) "

LMAO

[Patrick Wallek]

Harry,

Don't worry, you're not the only one that mis-read the subject initially.

My first though too was: "Who the hell is using paper tape for backups?"

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Guys:

I confess too, that the post's title really caught my attention. The awful part of it is that I once used paper tape and TTY-33 devices :-))

Regards!

...JRF...

[Tim D Fulford]

Rob

I have had experience re-installing machines from CD & tar/fbackup tapes. In truth you want to avoid it (i.e. use Ignite-UX). I also appriciate that you would like pointers. But the key to disaster recovery is in the planning and not relying on other peoples plans, being sure that what was planned acyually works. An example of this is doing test restores of some of you backups to make sure they do indeed contain data!

If you/your co are serious about DR then do DR rehersals and document them. Do not just practice (though essential). Try doing things like using the recovery CD, doc/log spurious problems & try these. If you use trusted systems see if you can break-in. (theres a thread running that someone has lost the root pwd to a trusted system & another that is unable to bot in single user mode).

Doing the above has other spinoffs for the tech guys, they get to see new ways of solviong problems & doing things efficiently, knowing the limits. Management will also benefit as they will be more confident about approaching DR situations.

Enough of my ranting (this is a pet subject)

Tim