using fbackup to do full backup of all files

[Brian Bartley]

All,
What's the best way to do a full backup with fbackup? Use "fbackup -x -i /"? I don't see any way to tell it to back up all of a volume group, it would be nice if I could tell it to backup /dev/vg00. I'm a bit confused, for example if I use "/" as the directory to be backed up, then it appears to get all directories under "/", such as var, home, etc. I do use Ignite also, but I didn't think Ignite is recommended for restoring single files, it's mainly for restoring whole systems. Any caveats regarding using a make_tape_recovery tape to restore a single file? Thanks,
Brian

[Patrick Wallek · Accepted solution]

You can absolutely use a make_tape_recovery tape to restore a single file. When you do you must remember that the tape is written WITHOUT leading '/' on the directory names. So whatever you restore will be restored relative to the directory you are currently in.

To list files on the make_tape_recovery tape (where ?mn is your actual tape device 1mn, 2mn, whatever):

# mt -f /dev/rmt/?mn rew
# mt -f /dev/rmt/?mn fsf 1
# tar -tvf /dev/rmt/?mn

To actually restore a file:

# mt -f /dev/rmt/?mn rew
# mt -f /dev/rmt/?mn fsf 1
# tar -xvf /dev/rmt/?mn dir/file

If you wanted to restore /etc/hosts for example then the tar command would be:

# tar -xvf /dev/rmt/?mn etc/hosts

If your current directory is NOT '/' when you do the above command then the etc directory would be created under whatever your current directory is and the hosts file would be in it. If you were in /home/root, then you would find /home/root/etc/hosts after the above command.

[Bill Hassell]

fbackup is a file backup tool so the concept of vg00 does not exist. Volume groups are used to assign chunks of disk space to logical volumes, which may or may not have a filesystem. SO there is no way to tell fbackup about vg00. Instead, you create a graph file starting with "i /" to include everything, then "e /something" to exclude mountpoints not on vg00. Then use -g graphfile to backup the files.

Note that the performance of fbackup (and especially frecover) is many times better than Ignite/UX (aka, pax). Be sure to include a config file unless you are using (ancient) reel-to-reel tapes.

fbackup is vastly superior to Ignite/UX for general file backup. Ignite/UX is designed only for a disaster recovery or to clone systems.

[Joel Girot]

Hi Brian
see this thread :
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=900850
Joel