HP-UX

Hello,

We've recently had a multiple hardrive failure in our legacy HP9000. Now the drives are repaired and the filesystems are recreated, I went to restore the last of the database tables from our dds3 backup, but cannot. Here's what's going on: BTW, I'm an absolute novice w/ HP-UX

The Backup Script:

/usr/sbin/fbackup -f /dev/rmt/0m -g /file.list -y -v > backup.log 2>&1&
cd /new/
find . -mtime +15 -name '*.log' -exec rm {} \;
find . -mtime +10 -name '*.rrr' -exec rm {} \;
cd /home/programs/ingres/files
cat /dev/null > errlog.log

The rmt directory:


# ls /dev/rmt/
0m 0mn c2t0d0BEST c2t0d0BESTn stape_config
0mb 0mnb c2t0d0BESTb c2t0d0BESTnb


The results of frecover: (I put the third tape of 3 in the drive) tried the others as well . . .

# frecover -f /dev/rmt/0m -xov -i /new
frecover(5409): unable to read volume header
frecover(5418): not an fbackup volume; unable to read volume header
frecover(2105): did not find expected file marker
frecover(5412): Do you wish to try to salvage this volume? [yes no] no
frecover(5411): Do you wish to try a different volume? [yes no] no
frecover(5414): abort selected
frecover(4301): /new not recovered from backup media



I am trying to recover the directories /new and /new1 but it appears that either my syntax is wrong, all three of my backup up tapes are bad, or . . ?

I've cleaned the drive numerous times and tried a different DDS3 drive with same results. I even tried to restore it using the SAM . . . with the same results as above for frecover.

I have tried to list the contents of the tape:

# tar -tvf /dev/rmt/0mn new
# tar -tvf /dev/rmt/0m
Tar: tape read error
# tar -tvf /dev/rmt/0m new
# mt -t /dev/rmt/0mn fsf 1
# mt -t /dev/rmt/0mn fsf 1
fsf 1 failed: I/O error

Any guidance/advice for Sysadmin with little experience in the RISCier field? Thanks in advance.

I have not used fbackup or frecover this century, but what I recall is...

fbackup uses its own format. tar cannot read it. fbackup uses the entire tape. The first item written on a new tape is a very short file called the volume header. This gets updated each tape you reuse the tape with fbackup and so fbackup knows how many times it has written to the tape. If you can't find the header, the tape must be bad or something. 0m is the right device and fbackup always rewinds the tape explicitly before writing. frecover will do an explicit rewind as well. An fbackup tape looks like many files to other programs.. it is not a single file the way a tar archive is. frecover is very fast with DDS tapes.. it somehow uses "group marks" (or something like that) to fast forward to the right data.

Well, I tried another set of backup tapes with the same results, the "unable to read volume header. . ." Is there a way I can verify what type of backup was used to create these tapes. My manager, whom inherited this server, doesn't remember much about the backup and restoration processes, except that he used the backup.script listed on at least one occasion.

Putting the possibility of bad media aside, how would I go about finding out what's on the tapes. It appears from they are neither tar'd, nor frecover backups. Could they be cpio's or something else? Please pass on the commands that would help me narrow this down.

Thanks

As perderabo mentionned, fbackup has its own routines to speed up things... And so can only be of use with its alter ego command frecover, worse, it can only recover once it has read its index (1rst file on 1rst tape) so my question is more: Are you sure there were only 3 tapes?
Else: >>/usr/sbin/fbackup -f /dev/rmt/0m -g /file.list using a "graph" (If my memory serves me, youre not the only perderabo...) means in /files.list you should find what fbackup should have backed up, I would check if what you are looking for is there...

I have seen sites for HPUX backup using cpio, and even dd....

Could it be you have ignite tapes in your hands?
mos:/home/vbe $ which make_recovery
/opt/ignite/bin/make_recovery
mos:/home/vbe $ uname -r
B.10.20
mos:/home/vbe $

. . . when I went through with HP tech support, they said it didn't include the directories for which I was looking.

The way I ran ignite was with this syntax:

#cd /opt/ignite/bin
#PATH=$PATH:/opt/ignite/bin
#export path
#make_recovery -A -d /dev/rmt/0mn

It said it had completed successfully. . . I thought I had told it to do a full bootoable backup of all the filesystems. I guess I did something wrong.

Being an extreme novice I wouldn't even know where or how to start filtering through the ignite tape. Most every unix/linux style command I know, I forget the usage because I am so swamped in maintaining a microsoft infrastructure.

-A means entire volume group but that is vg00 only... and it is (or should be) bootable
To test it, you would have to boot from it and interrupt the sequence within the time limit (10sec?) otherwise it would reinstall the system...

If it boots you would know you have the wrong tape and would be in search of the fbackup tapes...