raulin@tdl.UUCP (Raulin Olivera) (05/17/89)
I just installed SCO Xenix 2.2.3 on a Compaq 286. The previous version was 2.2.1. This was a "per gratis" upgrage from SCO. While running under 2.2.1 we did our backups with a combination of cpio and the backup command. When I reinstalled 2.2.3 I restored 2 file systems /root and /u from my cpio full system backup. At that point the installation looked fine. I then ran 2 restores from level backups that had been created prior to the 2.2.3 install. !!!STEPPED ALL OVER MY /U FILESYSTEM!!! It took me 2 days and 3 installs to figure out what was going on. My final solution was to restore the system up to the point where I did the cpio restore and forget the rest. The system seems to be doing fine now. I will have to alert the users that they may have lost some data. I don't see in my documentation that the backup and restore commands are not portable. Unless I missed it. But it makes sense that if backup retains inode numbers and trys to use the same inode numbers on a new filesystem that one might have problems. Doesn't it? Has anyone else gone through this type of grief or heard of any similar stories? =Ralo->
gillisb@mist.CS.ORST.EDU (Brian Gillis) (05/22/89)
What advantage does the dump and restore commands have over tar?? Even since I have been using Xenix (IE...Tany 16) the dump and restore commands have never worked with a hoot. Brian Gillis gillisb@gsd.UUCP hp-pcd!gsd!gillisb
john@jetson.UPMA.MD.US (John Owens) (05/24/89)
In article <131@tdl.UUCP>, raulin@tdl.UUCP (Raulin Olivera) writes: > restored 2 file systems /root and /u from my cpio full system > backup. At that point the installation looked fine. I then > ran 2 restores from level backups that had been created prior ^ level what? level > 0? > to the 2.2.3 install. !!!STEPPED ALL OVER MY /U FILESYSTEM!!! You can only restore incremental backups (with restore r) on top of restores of the previous full backups and all incrementals with lower level numbers. When you do a "restore r", it replaces all the files into their original inode locations. When you extract from cpio, the files will end up with completely different inode numbers. How did you manage to get an incremental backup from the date of a cpio anyway? backup to /dev/null after running cpio? Summary: Use backup exclusively for full and incremental backups for disaster recovery and any other full-filesystem restores. Use cpio for special-purpose backups that you're likely to want to restore all or part of onto a good, existing filesystem. And only use "restore r" on a filesystem that's either completely empty (fresh from mkfs) or has just had another "restore r" done on it from a lower-level backup. Good luck! -- John Owens john@jetson.UPMA.MD.US uunet!jetson!john +1 301 249 6000 john%jetson.uucp@uunet.uu.net