Unix: Backup & Recovery Tips & Tricks ...

[Shahbaz_1]

Hi Friends,
Please give me tips on Unix o/s backup & Recovery.
e.g
-- I 've created a recovery tape using ignite.
when I need to restore the o/s, how should I use it?

-- What are imp or critical unix files, we should backup ?

-- Backup tools available and which should be used?

And
Thanks In Adv.

Regards
Shah

[Stefan Farrelly]

To restore the o/s from your ignite tape you need to insert the tape into your tape drive, reboot your server, and interrupt the boot sequence (when prompted that you have 10 seconds to do so) then boot from the tape - by typing BOOT . Then a menu will appear which you can follow to complete the restore.

The important or critical files are pretty much all of /var, /opt, /usr, /stand and /
I would back them all up for sure.

The best free HP backup tool to use is fbackup. Its fast and realiable and supported.
You should backup your application data daily and the operating system daily if possible, or weekly at a minimum. We do on all our HP servers.

[Vincent Farrugia]

Hello,

To restore from ignite, reboot server, stop the boot process at PDC, do a sea command, and boot from the sequential access device (tape) found by sea. In other words, boot from tape and ignite backup will be restored.

The important and critical unix files you need to backup? Just do an ignite of all vg and all critical unix files will be there in ignite backup :-)

Other backup utilities: tar, fbackup are commonly used. Do a man tar and man fbackup. If you want a full-fletched, professional backup system, multi-tape and multi-host backup, buy and install Omniback.

HTH,
Vince

[steven Burgess_2]

Hi Shah

Have a read of the below thread. Initially speaking about veritas backups but then looking at the differences between tar and fbackup. Using fbackup with incrementals and a couple of ignite examples

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0x4438eea29889d611abdb0090277a778c,00.html

HTH

Steve

[Pete Randall]

Shah,

Your other questions have been pretty well covered, but I thought I should throw this in: if you can afford it, use OmniBack, it's far superior to any of the free tools. There are also other good backup products from Veritas and Legato and others, but I chose OmniBack because of the quality of support I get from HP. You don't want to be having problems with your backups for your days - that's without a doubt when you're going to end up crashing.

Good Luck,
Pete

[Justo Exposito]

Hi Shah,

I was using OmniBack II 3.5 for two years in an Oracle environment with 4 boxes, two of this in MC/ServiceGuard cluster, and about 15 Windows NT servers, without problems.

Then I can tell you that is a good tool for backups.

It's strongly recomended to use Ignite in order to save the O.S.

Regards,

Justo.

[Nick Wickens]

I was using fbackup to backup/recover my systems in disaster tests quite happily for 3 years and then because of limitations with Informix's ontape database backup utility I was forced into the Storage manager route and hence installed Omniback.

If you have a complicated setup and want a centralised system to backup Windows, databases, HP-UX systems etc then Omniback is the way to go. However if you just want to secure your filesystems on a single HP-UX box then stick with fbackup. Its far far simpler AND in my view and experience, more reliable method AND its essentially free !

[Shahbaz_1]

Hi,
Thanks very body, for you excellent inputs.

Want to know more about "OMNIBACKUP".
- The latest version ?
- does it come with the HP-Ux software or separate license?

- Does it support HP hardware only or ...?

And
Installing & Configuring OMNIbackup.

Please ...

Regards
Shah

[Michael Tully · Accepted solution]

Hi Shah,

The latest version of omniback is 4.1 although the version 5 is being released soon.
It comes packaged on the later Application CD's and you can install a trial license to evaluate the product. It can also be downloaded should you not have it. I'll find the link for you.
It supports a variety of different platforms, HPUX, windows, NT solaris, AIX and many more.
You can get a copy of the release notes for OmniBack starting from this link.
http://ovweb.external.hp.com/lpe/doc_serv/

HTH
Michael

[Fragon]

I use
#make_recovery -A
to backup my O/S. This will backup all vg00. Or you can issue -C parameter instead of -A.
Without OMNIBACKUP, I think fbackup/frecovery is the best backup tool in HP-UX.

live as you wish
ux

[Michael Tully]

Here is the download link. From here you can use the links to other information about OmniBack.

http://www.openview.hp.com/products/omniback/seetrybuy/index.asp

HTH
Michael

[Patrick Wallek]

Here is the link for HP OmniBack II:
http://www.openview.hp.com/products/omniback/

This site has LOTS of information on Omniback. You should be able to find answers to most of your Omniback questions there.

[Kurt Beyers.]

And there is also an excellent Omniback forum:

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/CategoryHome/0,,251,00.html

Kurt

[John Sisak]

I want to add that if you are in a pinch and only have an Ignite tape, you can extract an individual file from the Ignite tape:
mt -t /dev/rmt/0mn fsf 1
tar -xvf /dev/rmt/0m filename

(where /dev/rmt/0mn is your tape drive)

If memory serves me correctly, the filename must be entered as if you are in /, so for example, to restore /etc/passwd you would enter:
mt -t /dev/rmt/0mn fsf 1
tar -xvf /dev/rmt/0m etc/passwd