Re: Question in case of disaster
> My interest is to know ow to restore an entire directory and all it's > subdirectories and all their files content in the shortest time possible > after an unwanted disaster may occur. To do this in the shortest time possible the answer must be back up the amanda database files onto floppy disk on a regular basis, also test the floppy regularly. If your DB files won't fit onto a floppy consider CD or the tape your backing the other stuff on to. Although may have complicatyions with this method because the DB files will be open while amanda is running. In this scenario you only have to dig through the tape for the DB files restore them then restore as normal. This is the way we do it although touch wood we have not been faced with such a situation to date. Now that I've said that I know it's going to happen. David Flood Systems Administrator
Re: Question in case of disaster
> I run amanda-2.4.2p1-2. Supose an intruder break somehow the system and > perform a "rm -rf /". From this point, after a fresh reinstall of the > system, how I can restore from tape, if no backup database is not > availale anymore? I use rsync via ssh after the backup jobs to copy Amanda's index to another box.
Re: Question in case of disaster
On Tue, 14 May 2002, Deb Baddorf wrote: > I could be wrong here, but: > I think the part they want you to print is only an OVERVIEW -- > which disk entry and what number file it is on the tape. > NOT a listing of individual files. That was what I meant anyway. The important part for me is the file number, ie where to move with 'mt' in case a manual restore is required. The professional look of the tape cases is a nice bonus. -- Ulrik Sandberg
Re: Question in case of disaster
I could be wrong here, but: I think the part they want you to print is only an OVERVIEW -- which disk entry and what number file it is on the tape. NOT a listing of individual files. If your whole disk is bad, you don't need an index very much -- you won't want to restore individual files. You want to restore the whole disk. And therefore the short list (just the disk names) is useful. If I'm hearing both sides aright .But I could be wrong! Deb Baddorf At 06:24 PM 5/14/2002 +0300, you wrote: >On Mon, 13 May 2002, Anthony A. D. Talltree wrote: > > > There's a lot to be said for printing tape labels or case inserts that > > document the contents of each tape -- or for printing each day's results > > and keeping them in a binder. > >In my case this cannot be done: I have a mission critical server, with >thousand of small files and there is an ocean between my location and >server location. In case of a disaster I have to be able to restore a huge >directory tree with more than 10,000 files within minutes or hours at >most. With a paper list and tapes that I have to get a visa and fly a day >in order to touch them this is not an option. --- Deb Baddorf [EMAIL PROTECTED] 840-2289 "You can't help getting older, but you don't have to get old." - George Burns <
Re: Question in case of disaster
On Tue, 14 May 2002, Anthony A. D. Talltree wrote: > >In case of a disaster I have to be able to restore a huge > >directory tree with more than 10,000 files within minutes or hours at > >most. With a paper list and tapes that I have to get a visa and fly a day > >in order to touch them this is not an option. > > Is there a compelling reason why you can't print them out where you are? Yes, there are: - I cannot afford a printer and so much paper - I have slow connection and fetching data will takes hours And most important: in case of a disaster, I'll be lost in a sea of paper trying to restore +10,000 files in few hours. I'm stop writing on this thread, since it does not sense to continue form this point. Ave, Radu -- Radu Filip Network Administrator @ Technical University of Iasi [EMAIL PROTECTED] Information Technology and Communication Center http://socrate.tuiasi.ro/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://ccti.tuiasi.ro/
Re: Question in case of disaster
On Tue, 14 May 2002, Radu Filip wrote: - On Mon, 13 May 2002, Anthony A. D. Talltree wrote: - - > There's a lot to be said for printing tape labels or case inserts that - > document the contents of each tape -- or for printing each day's results - > and keeping them in a binder. - - In my case this cannot be done: I have a mission critical server, with - thousand of small files and there is an ocean between my location and - server location. In case of a disaster I have to be able to restore a huge - directory tree with more than 10,000 files within minutes or hours at - most. With a paper list and tapes that I have to get a visa and fly a day - in order to touch them this is not an option. - - As a workaround, I'm backing up all /var/lib/amanda/my_tapes on a diffrent - machine, but this is just an workaround. This is why I asked if baking up - index itself on the beginning of a tape so Amanda can use it as an - alternative it is planned as a future feature for Amanda, because in cases - when you need to restore everything in shortest time, this is really - usefull. What I am implementing here is a second Amanda tape server. After the backups are done on the primary, I run rsync to syncronoze all of the relavalent directories to the backup machine. -- -- Stephen Carville UNIX and Network Administrator DPSI (formerly Ace USA Flood Services) 310-342-3602 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Question in case of disaster
>In case of a disaster I have to be able to restore a huge >directory tree with more than 10,000 files within minutes or hours at >most. With a paper list and tapes that I have to get a visa and fly a day >in order to touch them this is not an option. Is there a compelling reason why you can't print them out where you are?
Re: Question in case of disaster
On Tue, 14 May 2002 at 6:24pm, Radu Filip wrote
> As a workaround, I'm backing up all /var/lib/amanda/my_tapes on a diffrent
> machine, but this is just an workaround. This is why I asked if baking up
> index itself on the beginning of a tape so Amanda can use it as an
> alternative it is planned as a future feature for Amanda, because in cases
> when you need to restore everything in shortest time, this is really
> usefull.
You currently have a couple options:
1) Back up the {log,index}dir to tape with amanda (with dumpcycle 0, so
you get a full snapshot every night). In case of a failure, install
amanda and use amrestore to find the {log,index}dir, restore that, and
then restore the VIF (very important filesystem).
2) Every night, as part of your backup script, tar up the {log,index}dir
and (s)cp it to another machine. In case the primary machine dies, you'll
still have your entire amanda history. for extra redundancy, back up that
directory on the other machine as well.
I currently do *both* these things, and in some senses consider it a
minimum safe practice.
--
Joshua Baker-LePain
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Duke University
Re: Question in case of disaster
On Mon, 13 May 2002, Anthony A. D. Talltree wrote: > There's a lot to be said for printing tape labels or case inserts that > document the contents of each tape -- or for printing each day's results > and keeping them in a binder. In my case this cannot be done: I have a mission critical server, with thousand of small files and there is an ocean between my location and server location. In case of a disaster I have to be able to restore a huge directory tree with more than 10,000 files within minutes or hours at most. With a paper list and tapes that I have to get a visa and fly a day in order to touch them this is not an option. As a workaround, I'm backing up all /var/lib/amanda/my_tapes on a diffrent machine, but this is just an workaround. This is why I asked if baking up index itself on the beginning of a tape so Amanda can use it as an alternative it is planned as a future feature for Amanda, because in cases when you need to restore everything in shortest time, this is really usefull. Ave, Socrate -- Radu Filip Network Administrator @ Technical University of Iasi [EMAIL PROTECTED] Information Technology and Communication Center http://socrate.tuiasi.ro/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://ccti.tuiasi.ro/
Re: Question in case of disaster
On Mon, 13 May 2002, Anthony A. D. Talltree wrote: > There's a lot to be said for printing tape labels or case inserts that > document the contents of each tape -- or for printing each day's results > and keeping them in a binder. Definitely. I enabled that from day one. After I fixed up the templates, as described a few weeks ago in this list, they print nicely. Each morning I pick up a new case insert in the printer, cut a little, fold a little and it's done. Makes the stack of tapes look really professional. -- Ulrik Sandberg
Re: Question in case of disaster
There's a lot to be said for printing tape labels or case inserts that document the contents of each tape -- or for printing each day's results and keeping them in a binder.
Re: Question in case of disaster
On Sun, 12 May 2002, Jon LaBadie wrote: > 2. dump/restore are generic names for a type of backup and recovery pair > of programs found on many unix systems. The dump/restore pair have to > be specific for the "type" of file system they were written for. > > On linux "I think" you have programs named dump and restore. I do not, > I have ufsdump and ufsrestore. UFS is the type of file system on Solaris. > You might also have ext2dump or reiserfsdump. I could also have vxfsdump > (veritas fs). > > If you are like me, and not using dump/restore, but using tar, tar is both > your dump and your restore. > > 1. dd will recover the dump image. That could be a tar file or a dump file > depending on your backup program. Thank you (and the others) for the answers to my questions. Now I have a question for Amanda developers: is there any plan for Amanda to backup also on tape the backup index? I read about this feature on a commercial page on BRU, so maybe it will be possible to add this feature in Amanda too, smewhere in the future. Ave, Radu -- Radu Filip Network Administrator @ Technical University of Iasi [EMAIL PROTECTED] Information Technology and Communication Center http://socrate.tuiasi.ro/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://ccti.tuiasi.ro/
Re: Question in case of disaster
On Tue, 2002-05-07 at 10:18, Radu Filip wrote: Hi > I'm not in a disaster situation, fortunatelly, but I would like to test > how to proceed, just in case. Good idea :) > (1) "dd if=$TAPE bs=32k skip=1 of=/tape_content" produce what in > /tape_content? An ISO image that I can mount it with "mount -o loop"? Depending on which program you used for the backup you will get a tar or a dump-archive. So extract with suitable program. > (2) What is mentioned ufsrestore program? I tried to find what RPM (I ran > RedHat) package belongs to but I did not find anything. ufsdump is Solaris' version of dump. Viceverse ufsrestore is the Solaris version of... restore :) Kind regards... -- Jens Rohde, System Administrator --- Eastfork Object Space (EOS), Margrethepladsen 3, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark Tel: +45 8732 8787 / Fax: +45 8732 8788
Re: Question in case of disaster
I have an rsync running to an alternate server so the index files are replicated to once the backup is completed. So I always have a fall back server. David Flood wrote: >>My interest is to know ow to restore an entire directory and all it's >>subdirectories and all their files content in the shortest time possible >>after an unwanted disaster may occur. >> > > To do this in the shortest time possible the answer must be back > up the amanda database files onto floppy disk on a regular basis, > also test the floppy regularly. If your DB files won't fit onto a floppy > consider CD or the tape your backing the other stuff on to. > Although may have complicatyions with this method because the > DB files will be open while amanda is running. In this scenario you > only have to dig through the tape for the DB files restore them then > restore as normal. > > This is the way we do it although touch wood we have not been > faced with such a situation to date. Now that I've said that I know > it's going to happen. > > > David Flood > Systems Administrator > -- _ Don Potter -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Center for Human Genetics Duke University -_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Never knock on Death's door. Ring the doorbell and run (he hates that)
Re: Question in case of disaster
On Tue, 7 May 2002 at 11:18am, Radu Filip wrote > (1) "dd if=$TAPE bs=32k skip=1 of=/tape_content" produce what in > /tape_content? An ISO image that I can mount it with "mount -o loop"? It is a file containing a backup image of a single disklist entry. What type of image depends upon what backup tool you are using. If you are using DUMP, then it's a dump image particular to the filesystem backed up (i.e. xfsdump for an XFS filesystem, dump for an ext2 filesystem on Linux, etc). If you use GNUtar, then it's a tarball. > (2) What is mentioned ufsrestore program? I tried to find what RPM (I ran > RedHat) package belongs to but I did not find anything. ufsdump/restore is the DUMP on Solaris for their UFS filesystem. You won't find it on Linux. > My interest is to know ow to restore an entire directory and all it's > subdirectories and all their files content in the shortest time possible > after an unwanted disaster may occur. As someone else mentioned, the easiest way is to back up the amanda DBs (I tar 'em up each night and copy them to our RAID), which will then allow you to find out which tapes you need. Otherwise, you can read the header of each tape file via 'dd if=$TAPE bs=32k count=1 of=tapefile_header' at the beginning of each -- the header contains the filesystem info, date, backup level, and restore command. -- Joshua Baker-LePain Department of Biomedical Engineering Duke University
Re: Question in case of disaster
> My interest is to know ow to restore an entire directory and all it's > subdirectories and all their files content in the shortest time possible > after an unwanted disaster may occur. To do this in the shortest time possible the answer must be back up the amanda database files onto floppy disk on a regular basis, also test the floppy regularly. If your DB files won't fit onto a floppy consider CD or the tape your backing the other stuff on to. Although may have complicatyions with this method because the DB files will be open while amanda is running. In this scenario you only have to dig through the tape for the DB files restore them then restore as normal. This is the way we do it although touch wood we have not been faced with such a situation to date. Now that I've said that I know it's going to happen. David Flood Systems Administrator
Question in case of disaster
Hi, I'm not in a disaster situation, fortunatelly, but I would like to test how to proceed, just in case. I run amanda-2.4.2p1-2. Supose an intruder break somehow the system and perform a "rm -rf /". From this point, after a fresh reinstall of the system, how I can restore from tape, if no backup database is not availale anymore? I read "Restoring Without AMANDA" but some questions remains: (1) "dd if=$TAPE bs=32k skip=1 of=/tape_content" produce what in /tape_content? An ISO image that I can mount it with "mount -o loop"? (2) What is mentioned ufsrestore program? I tried to find what RPM (I ran RedHat) package belongs to but I did not find anything. My interest is to know ow to restore an entire directory and all it's subdirectories and all their files content in the shortest time possible after an unwanted disaster may occur. Thank you, Radu -- Radu Filip Network Administrator @ Technical University of Iasi [EMAIL PROTECTED] Information Technology and Communication Center http://socrate.tuiasi.ro/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://ccti.tuiasi.ro/
