VMS backup to NFS directory on UNIX

[John Kittel]

Is anyone doing VMS backups to NFS filesystems?

The NFS server is Unix.

First problem I am encountering: I want to do an image backup, but the output device must be mounted foreign, and I don't see a way to NFS mount foreign.

- John

[John Kittel]

I should probably add that I don't know what I am doing with the VMS backup command.

I "thought" I wanted to do an image backup, but now I'm not sure.

What I'm trying to accomplish is to do a full disk backup to the NFS directory, so that I can then (later) restore the whole thing to a new disk, pop that disk into a new system, and have it work just like the original disk.

- John

[John Kittel]

hoo-boy.

Sorry for cluttering up the forum with answers to my own dumb questions. I'd been working on this all afternoon without success, then as soon as I put my question in the forum I discovered the answer.

I got the image backup going without mounting /foreign by doing:

$backup/image... input-spec output-spec/save

Still hoping for other advice if you have any.

- John

[Antoniov.]

John,
nice to meet you in vms and I hope you like vms.
I believe you want to do backup/image onto nfs device to see all files. I'm just curious if this works fine.

Antonio Vigliotti

[Ian Miller.]

there is no reason why you can't do an image backup to a saveset on a NFS share.
$ BACKUP/IMAGE Dxxx: NFSDSK:[dir]saveset.BCK/SAVE

Its the same as writing a saveset to a disk.

[Antoniov.]

Ian,
sorry, I sadly expressed my question. I believe John want to mirror vms files on unix system but backup/image make a saveset on NFS device; saveset is not understability by unix users.

Antonio Vigliotti

[Ian Miller.]

You can use BACKUP to copy files

$ BACKUP dev1:[foo...] dev2:[*...]/OWN=ORIG

creates the foo directory tree on dev2

[John Kittel]

The command:

$backup/image... input-spec output-spec/save

is working at least partly. It doesn't complain. The saveset file is created. From the same system that created the saveset, I can then list the contents of the saveset with:

$backup/list ....

But when I mount the NFS directory on another similar VMS system, in a similar way, and try to list the contents of the saveset, backup says it's not a saveset.

From the system that created the saveset, a dir/full on the file shows it as fixed lenght 32256 byte records record format. From the system that doesn't recognize it as a saveset, a dir/full shows the file as record format stream_LF.

The mount options, and everything else I've checked, seem to be identical on the two systems.

[Bojan Nemec]

John,

This is a problem with file attributes. VMS has more file types and record formats than any UNIX. NFS stores file attributes in ADF files. Check if backup has created an ADF file.

For more information see:

http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/732final/6526/6526pro_047.html#adfs_sec

Bojan

[Antoniov.]

John,
you can see any difference with command
$ UCX SH MOUNT device /FULL
on both systems.
I guess there is some difference in command $ UCX MOUNT device /[NO]CONVERT
or else
$ UCX MOUNT device /SERVER=unix
However SHOW MOUNT can help you.

Antonio Vigliotti

[Jan van den Ende]

John,

Never tried, and can not now, but...

from your VMS system that has the NFS drive mounted, do a
$ SET FILE /attr=(lrl=32256,rfm=fix)
and try again.
Although the file can do nothing with it, I guess that this way you may be able to tell RMS how to treat the file.

No guarantee, but worth a try.

Tell us the outcome!

Jan

[Stanley F Quayle]

I backup up all my VMS systems to a Linux file server via NFS.

The secret is that you have to add "/ADF=CREATE" to the UCX MOUNT command.

This causes VMS to create the file, but also:
- Creates a "hidden" (starts with ".$ADF$") file on the NFS server which holds the file characteristics
- Create a hard link from "XYZ.ABC;x" (where "x" is a version number) to "XYZ.ABC", so you can get the latest version while preserving previous versions.

This works great -- versions and characteristics are prefectly preserved.

As for your image backup, the other posters are correct -- you must back up to a saveset, which is a single file on the file server.

[John Kittel]

Thanks guys! This is helping. In addition to having technical difficulty getting this to work, I'm also having difficulty having enough time to work on it. And, leaving this afternoon for a week of vacation...

Bojan, - thanks for the documentation link. I hadn't gotten around to searching for it, and now I don't have to. Looks good!

Jan! Changing the file attributes from the system where it looked wrong worked. After setting the attributes, the file appeared to ba a vaild saveset, and I could list it. I'm hoping to find a way to not have to keep doing that all the time, but this at least allows it to work for now. Interesting.

Bojan and Stanley. I was already somewhat onto the ADF business but hadn't got it actually working the way I want, and still don't. As mentioned before, the system that creates the saveset sees the file with the proper attributes as a saveset, but the other system ( same mount options, etc, ADF included) doesn't see it as proper saveset file /record type. ( unless I follow Jan's set file.../attr... recommendation, and I don't want to have to do that every time...)

After I get back from vacation I will play with this some more.

Thanks again.

- John

[Joe M_3]

John,
We are attempting to do the same thing; however, I do not know how to setup NFS client on an OpenVMS system. Can you provide the steps needed to configure an NFS client on VMS?

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

Joe,

Check the ucx mount command.

E.g. ucx mount dnfs0: label logical /path="/backup"/host="unixname"

After that you can use logical to access the nfs share.

Wim

[Ian Miller.]

http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/732final/6526/6526pro_047.html#nfs_client_chap

[John Kittel]

All,

Still working on this. Getting some results while typing in the commands from the command line. Nothing automated or procedurized yet. I am able to do the backups and restore from them, but if restoring to a system that was not the original system that did the backup, I still have to fiddle with the file attributes before doing the restore.

Joe, we're using somewhat old-ish versions of VMS, UCX. VMS 6.2, UCX 4.2. First enable NFS client. I use the ucx$config procedure; I understand that procedure has a new name in later versions. Then mount the NFS filesystem; I'm currently using

UCX> mount dnfs1: /host=nfshost.domain.com /path="/nfsdir"/adf=create

I also have an NFS proxy on the VMS client, to map the VMS backup account to a Unix UID, GID. Like this:

UCX> add proxy backup/uid=90/gid=90/host=nfshost.domain.com

And of course on the (Unix) NFS server side, export the directory, create account wih uid and gid as above, set ownership and protection on NFS directories.

- John

[John Kittel]

Closing this now, as the original question has long since been answered. As indicated already, I've got this somewhat working. If I come up with another technical question, will open new thread.

Thanks again everyone.

- John