Mount a HP-UX tape device on a Linux machine

[Jose Oscar Schmidt]

Hi,
We have two servers:
1) A HP-UX 11.0 which is installed a DLT-8000 tape device;
2) A Linux ASE without any tape device.
We want to build a backup routine on the Linux, saving the data on DLT device across the network.
Is possible to mount the DLT device (/dev/rmt/0mnb) on the Linux machine, so we can reference it as a Linux local device? How can we do that?
Thanks,

Oscar

[Steven E. Protter · Accepted solution]

You can not do this with a stanard HP-UX OS installation. Its simply does not support that.

Options:
scp the files across and use the backup device via a ssh command.

Veritas Netbackup does make HP-UX tape devices available on the network to certain clients, at least for their product.

SEP

[Abdul Rahiman]

You may have the following options for your backup from Linux to HP-UX tape drive.

If you are doing a 'dump' backup from your linux system, you may be able to use the "rdump" command to backup.
#man rdump, for more info.

Setup NFS to mount your Linux filesystems on the HP-UX box and backup through NFS.

Or Use some standard backup software like Veritas or Legato to backup the whole environment in a client/server manner.

rsync would be a better utility than scp if the filesystem changes are minor and you could copy only changed files to the remote system.

HTH,
Abdul.

[harry d brown jr]

You can not "remote" mount a tape drive unless your "backup" software has that facility.

BUT you can CHEAT:

linux box:

DO ONCE:
/sbin/mknod /tmp/stuffing p
echo "+ +" >.rhosts

TO DO BACKUPS:
cd /
tar -cvf /tmp/stuffing .

ON HP BOX

remsh linuxbox dd if=/tmp/stuffing | dd of=/dev/rmt/TAPEDRIVENAME


live free or die
harry

[Stuart Browne]

Or you can just do it directly with the remsh command and pipes:

From hpux:

remsh linuxbox "cd /;tar cvf -" | dd of=/dev/rmt/TAPEDEVICE

If you're in remote-segments of the network, this also gives you the option to compress the stream to save bandwidth:

remsh linux "cd /;tar zcvf -" |

You can either write the compressed stream, or un-compress it before writing for better hardware-compression.

We do similar backup's here from about 8 servers around the office.

[KapilRaj]

I would do it in the following way ,

1. NFS mount the Linux Filesystems onto HPUX and backup.

Regds,

Kapil Raj

[Jose Oscar Schmidt]

Thank you all.

Oscar

[Abdul Rahiman]

Oscar,
The way to thank in this forum is by assigning points to the responses you've received.
regds,
Abdul.