UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Does the restore command run very very slow? I am trying to do restore some files, there is practically nobody else on the system. System is idle 99% of the time, but still my files are not found yet. I have been running this command for almost 6 hours. We have an AIX/UNIX 5.1 machine. The command I used is
restore -xvqf /dev/rmt0 /db/uci/xxx* where "xxx" is the prefix for my filenames. I am in '/db/uci' directory.

Is there a better way to restore files? Also, is there any way to find out where the job is currently?

Thank you in advance.
Latha Nair

restore will be tape bound, so it's no surprise that the cpu is idle. You should try practice restores at least once a month so you know what to expect. How long do dumps take? That should give you some idea. I don't know AIX, but you should look at whatever file might log tape errors. /var/adm/messages maybe? Are you getting read errors? Recoverable read errors send tape performance downhill. Have you cleaned your tape heads recently? Maybe they need it. And look at the tape drive...is it moving tape?

Unless you're getting a ton of errors, the best move might be to go home and come back tomorrow to see where you are.

There are no read errors being reported. I checked the error report. I can't go home yet... I have to start another as soon as this one is done. I guess all I can do is wait.

Thanks for the reply.

Is it a tar or cpio backup. Because "restore" is more effective or can be used only with cpio. On the otherhand, if you have used "tar" then the syntax may change. You can use "tar xvf".

raguram R

Or else try this

restore -xvqf /dev/rmt0 xxx*

from your /db/uci directory.


raguram R

Our vendor was also trying to solve this problem, it seems like they talked with IBM, and the solution seems to be that we needed quotes around the 'wild card' filenames. I was able to restore the entire directory thru 'smit'.

Thank you for your post.
Latha