Monitoring file systems backup Post: 302901048

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Special Forums UNIX and Linux Applications Infrastructure Monitoring Monitoring file systems backup Post 302901048 by hicksd8 on Sunday 11th of May 2014 07:45:52 AM

05-11-2014

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You don't state what hardware platform you have, what the cluster software suite is, or what the backup software is.

Your post indicates that you have a good understanding of how a (generically speaking) cluster works and that any one filesystem can only be under the control of one node at a time. Having multiple nodes thinking they could write to the volume would be anarchy and a clear recipe for data corruption. It is definitely the job of the cluster software suite to ensure that that never happens. Having said that, different cluster suites can have starkly different functionality.

Similarly, backup software suites also vary in the manner of operation.

So discussing cluster backup in generic terms I would say that there are two options for implementing backups. Firstly, when node-A fails and node-B takes over (by checking orphaned filesystems and then mounting them, taking over and broadcasting the cluster name and ip address (node-C and ipaddr-C) some cluster software will also failover scheduled jobs (eg, backup). Of course, the backup device(s) need to be still available (or node-B needs to have its own tape drive, for example) for this to work. Alternatively, like all the user community who only know about node-C and ipaddr-C, the backup is run from a machine outside the cluster which "calls in" on node-C, accesses or NFS mounts the filesystem, and backs it up. Usually, this is the preferred method.

Now in this scenario the backup software has no knowledge that it is backing up a cluster volume and it should work exactly the same way as it would with a local volume, ie, if it loses communication with the volume, it will report a backup failure. Some backup software suites (eg, NetBackup) are of client/server architecture which are very intelligent and will report failures in exactly the same way they usually do.

So in summary, the fact that it is a cluster should be largely irrelevant to reporting errors in backup schedules. How the success of a backup is verified is the same as the non-cluster scenario.

Hope that helps. Feel free to continue your questions but please give us all a clue of the platform and software(s) involved.

Last edited by hicksd8; 05-11-2014 at 12:46 PM..

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LEARN ABOUT OSF1

prestotab

prestotab(4)						     Kernel Interfaces Manual						      prestotab(4)

NAME

       prestotab - Lists the file systems for Prestoserve to accelerate

SYNOPSIS

       /etc/prestotab

DESCRIPTION

       The  /etc/prestotab  file  contains descriptive information about the mounted file systems whose I/O will be automatically accelerated with
       Prestoserve when the system starts up.  This file is created by the prestosetup command, which prompts you for the file systems to automat-
       ically accelerate when the system starts up.  You can also manually create the file.

       The  /etc/rc.config  file  contains  variables  that  specify the Prestoserve configuration.  If you configure Prestoserve to automatically
       accelerate file systems when the system starts up, the Prestoserve startup script (/sbin/init.d/presto) accelerates the mounted	file  sys-
       tems that are specified in the /etc/prestotab file or, if the file is empty or does not exist, all the local writable file systems that are
       currently mounted.

       The /etc/prestotab file contains a list of directory mount points (for example, /usr/users).  Block devices should not be included  because
       some functional subsystems, such as the Advanced File System (AdvFS), can map more than one block device to a mount point.

       Entries	in  the  /etc/prestotab file must be separated by spaces or must be located on separate lines.	You cannot specify comments in the
       file.

EXAMPLES

       An example of the /etc/prestotab file is as follows: /usr/users/disk1 /usr/users/disk2 /var/spool

FILES

       File pathname.

SEE ALSO

       Commands: presto(8), prestosetup(8)

       Guide to Prestoserve delim off

																      prestotab(4)