Backing Up Your System

In addition to your normal, periodic system backup procedures, you should create a network backup of your root volume group (see “Cold-installing HP-UX 11i v1.6”). Do this first before performing a cold-install, and again after the cold-install. If a problem occurs, it's a very simple procedure to restore the system to its original state.

This section offers two alternatives for performing system backups: fbackup, and make_net_recovery.

Using fbackup

Many administrators use the basic fbackup command to back up the entire system to tape. You do not need to unmount any imported file systems; fbackup does not cross NFS boundaries unless specified.

Using the normal tape location to do a full backup, insert a new tape and enter:

fbackup -f/dev/rmt/0m -i -v

Later, if you wish to return the system to its previous state, use the frecover command. See the fbackup(1M) manpage for examples.

Ignite-UX recovery command

For recovering a system, a better alternative to using fbackup and frecover is to use the make_net_ recovery command available with Ignite-UX, which offers more flexibility than fbackup and frecover, including the ability to recover non-bootable systems.

The Ignite-UX server software for HP-UX 11i v1.6 is provided on the HP-UX 11i v1.6 DVD, and can be cold-installed along with HP-UX 11i v1.6 to create a new server. See “Updating Your Ignite-UX Server” for details.

	NOTE: You cannot use make_tape_recovery and make_recover with HP-UX 11i v1.6. The make_net_recovery command is available.

Using make_net_
recovery

The Ignite-UX server has the make_net_recovery command to create a system recovery archive on another system on the network. The archive created by make_net_recovery is specific to the system it was created for and its identity includes hostname, IP_address, networking information, and so on. In the event of a root disk failure, you use the Ignite-UX server to restore the system by installing the recovery archive.

The contents of the system recovery archive always includes all files and directories which are essential to bringing up a functional system. This “essential” list is pre-defined by make_net_recovery. You can run make_net_recovery in its interactive mode to review the directories and files which make up the “essential list,” and also add or remove other data from the archive on a disk/volume group, file, or directory basis.

For more information on using make_net_recovery, see the make_net_recovery(1M) manpage or Chapter 11 of the Ignite-UX Administration Guide.