Topic: Flexbackup Interactive Restore

[Steve Bush]

I am trying to do an interactive restore on SME6.0b3+updates.
I used the same script I have used on previous versions.
Here is the script:
/bin/mt -f /dev/nst0 rewind
/bin/mt -f /dev/nst0 fsf 1
/usr/bin/flexbackup -restore
/bin/mt -f /dev/nst0 rewind


I receive the following error:
flexbackup version 1.1.7 (http://flexbackup.sourceforge.net)
/etc/flexbackup.conf syntax OK

|------------------------------------------------------------
| Checking 'buffer' on this machine... Ok
| Checking /bin/sh on this machine... bash2
|------------------------------------------------------------
| Logging output to "flexbackup.restore.200312091423.log"
| Reading from CURRENT TAPE POSITION
|------------------------------------------------------------
At block 1.
|------------------------------------------------------------
Interactive restore for tar not implemented at /usr/bin/flexbackup line 2077.

[%sig%]

[Darrell May]

Hi Steve,

This is not an SME bug as interactive restores are not an SME provided feature.  What you are doing is manually using flexbackup on the command line.  You then need to look at flexbackup directly.  If you execute:

# flexbackup --help

You will see the author does not support interactive restores under tar, only dump.

 flexbackup -restore             : interactive restore (dump type only for now)

If you wish to perform interactive restores, configure flexbackup to use dump:

/sbin/e-smith/config setprop flexbackup Type dump
/sbin/e-smith/expand-template /etc/flexbackup.conf

You'll then need to perform a dump backup of course to be able to use the dump interactive restore.  Catch 22.

Regards,

Darrell

[Steve Bush]

Ahh...
This must also have something to do with the amount of time it takes to get a listing of files on the tape.  SME5.1.2 is almost instantaneous, SME6.0b3 took over an hour.

Do you know what the reasoning was for the change from dump to tar?
Possibly the "End of Tape" bug that caused a full tape to rewind and continue backing up over itself?

[Darrell May]

IIRC the reason was that a dump tape will fail to restore completely if there is a single media error.  With tar each file is stored on tape separately so a media error is less detrimental to the restore process.

Darrell