Saving To File A Listing of the Contents of an FBackup tape

[Andrew Kaplan]

Hi there --

Is there a way to do save to file a listing of the contents of an FBackup tape? Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't fbackup and tar the same?

[Rodney Hills]

fbackup is totally different from tar.

You can get the generated index file that is located at the front of the type by-
frecover -f /dev/rmt/0m -I /tmp/tapeindex

or you can read the entire tape with-
frecover -vN -f /dev/rmt/0m >/tmp/tapelist

HTH

-- Rod Hills

[Andy Torres]

frecovery -N -v will produce a listing of files from a fbackup tape.
See the man page for frecover for further details.

I think fbackup actually uses cpio and make_tape_recovery uses tar or cpio. I might be wrong on those. Someone will probably verify that for me in the next reply.

[Rodney Hills]

If you wanted to generate the list as the backup is created, then use the -I option on fbackup.

fbackup -f /dev/rmt/0m -I /tmp/tapelist -i /somedirectory

HTH

-- Rod Hills

[Rodney Hills]

Andy,

fbackup is not like cpio. fbackup has its own tape format it creates.

make_tape_recovery uses pax (a tar like backup) to create the tape.

HTH

-- Rod Hills

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Andrew:

To add to Rodney's reply, 'fbackup' is HP-UX proprietary and therefore does not provide portability whereas (of course) 'tar' does.

However, 'fbackup' & 'frecover' allow high-speed tape searches and make file recovery times quicker. 'fbackup' also provides some very good checksum integrity checks.

The "index" for the contents of an 'fbackup' tape is generated as the 'fbackup' session begins, when the "graph" (files to include and/or exclude) is processed. It is possible for a file to be removed between the time the index is written to tape and the actual file is sought for transfer from disk to tape.

Thus, reading the tape for the actual files present is superior to merely reading the index if you absolutely want to guarantee the presence of a file.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Andrew Kaplan]

Hi there --

Thanks for your reply. The syntax that I am using is the following:

frecover -vrN -f /dev/rmt/5m > /tmp/datalist.txt

The contents of the tape are being displayed onscreen, and there is a 0-byte file named datalist.txt in the /tmp directory.

The only other question I have is, will the datalist.txt file become populated with the information being shown onscreen once the frecover command is completed? Thanks.

[Andy Torres]

Thanks for clarifying the fbackup method, Rod. cpio is mentioned at the bottom of the frecover man page. I incorrectly associated it with fbackup.

make_tape_recovery does use pax to package the ignite tape, but can use cpio or tar format to store the files (-m option).

Thanks again for the clarification.

Andrew, if the list doesn't come out you might like to try again without the -r option, just -vN.

[Rodney Hills]

You also may want to include redirection of STDERR.

frecover -vN -f /dev/rmt/5m >/tmp/datalist.txt 2>&1


Rod Hills

[Andrew Kaplan]

Hi there --

When I include the 2>&1 as part of the command syntax, I get an ambiguous output redirect error message. Also, the absense of the -r option causes the frecover to not run but simply list all options.

[Andy Torres]

I guess go ahead an dput the -r back in, and run again using | tee -a /tmp/datalist.txt.

Full syntax:
frecover -vrN -f /dev/rmt/5m | tee -a /tmp/datalist.txt

[Rodney Hills]

2>&1 is the universal way to redirect STDERR to STDOUT. Did you include a space before the "2".

Can you show the command you are using.

Rod Hills

[Andrew Kaplan]

Hi there --

The command that I was using is shown below:


frecover -vrN -f /dev/rmt/5m >/tmp/datalist.txt 2>&1

[Rodney Hills]

Be sure you are in the standard shell "sh" or "ksh". If you are in "csh", that will give you the error you are seeing...

Rod Hills