Backup Central

Hi folks,

I'm trying to help someone do a restore from a dump that is split into
multiple "chunks" in holding disk files. In this case, flushing to tape
first is not an option. I thought amrestore could do it, but then I
read the manpage and didn't see a way to do it.

The only way that I could think of doing it is to use "dd" to strip the
amanda header off the chunks and then concatenate them together into
one, huge file. The filesystem on the holding disk is XFS so the
filesize should not be a problem.

Is there an easier way to do this? The files are ufsdump being restored
to a Solaris machine, but the holding disk files are on a Linux box
which does not support ufsrestore.

Thanks,
--jonathan

Jonathan Dill wrote:

I'm trying to help someone do a restore from a dump that is split into
multiple "chunks" in holding disk files. In this case, flushing to tape
first is not an option. I thought amrestore could do it, but then I
read the manpage and didn't see a way to do it.


Just give the holdingdisk filename instead of the tapedevice name.

amrestore [-b blocksize] [-r|-c] [-p] [-h] [-f fileno] [-l label]
tape-device|holdingfile [hostname [diskname [datestamp [hostname
[diskname [datestamp ... ]]]]]]


Notice the: tape-device|holdingfile


If split in chunks, just feed the first part; the rest is done
automatically (the name of the next part is in the header of
each holding chunk).



The only way that I could think of doing it is to use "dd" to strip the
amanda header off the chunks and then concatenate them together into
one, huge file. The filesystem on the holding disk is XFS so the
filesize should not be a problem.

Is there an easier way to do this? The files are ufsdump being restored
to a Solaris machine, but the holding disk files are on a Linux box
which does not support ufsrestore.

You could also do something like dd to strip the header and pipe
the result over the network to another machine using netcat:
Untested:

First on the client:
nc -l -p 1234 | ufsrestore ...

Then on the amanda server:

for f in host._my_disk.0*; do dd bs=32k skip=1 if=$f; done |
nc -w 1 solarismachine 1234


(if having more than 10 chunks, you'll need to sort them correct first!)


--
Paul Bijnens, Xplanation Tel +32 16 397.511
Technologielaan 21 bus 2, B-3001 Leuven, BELGIUM Fax +32 16 397.512
http://www.xplanation.com/ email: Paul.Bijnens < at > xplanation.com
***********************************************************************
* I think I've got the hang of it now: exit, ^D, ^C, ^\, ^Z, ^Q, F6, *
* quit, ZZ, :q, :q!, M-Z, ^X^C, logoff, logout, close, bye, /bye, *
* stop, end, F3, ~., ^]c, +++ ATH, disconnect, halt, abort, hangup, *
* PF4, F20, ^X^X, :, KJOB, F14-f-e, F8-e, kill -1 $$, shutdown, *
* kill -9 1, Alt-F4, Ctrl-Alt-Del, AltGr-NumLock, Stop-A, ... *
* ... "Are you sure?" ... YES ... Phew ... I'm out *
***********************************************************************

Paul Bijnens wrote:

If split in chunks, just feed the first part; the rest is done
automatically (the name of the next part is in the header of
each holding chunk).

Hmm. That's what I thought, finding subsequent chunks might not be
working correctly then for whatever reason, but I'll have to search for
the e-mail from the person who was having the problem.

--jonathan

Jonathan Dill wrote:

Paul Bijnens wrote:

If split in chunks, just feed the first part; the rest is done
automatically (the name of the next part is in the header of
each holding chunk).


Hmm. That's what I thought, finding subsequent chunks might not be
working correctly then for whatever reason, but I'll have to search for
the e-mail from the person who was having the problem.

Yes, the absolute pathname of the nextchunk is found in the header
of each holdingdisk file.
That is needed, befause amanda can spread chunks over different
holdingdisks. But holdingdisk is meant as a temporary staging area
not as the ultimate format. The virtual tapes are meant for that.

That means indeed that you cannot easily move holdingdisk files around
e.g. burn them on CD etc. For easy restoring you need to put them
on the exact location as where they were created.
Otherwise, you'll have to fall back to little programs with
"dd bs=32k skip=1 ..." etc.



--
Paul Bijnens, Xplanation Tel +32 16 397.511
Technologielaan 21 bus 2, B-3001 Leuven, BELGIUM Fax +32 16 397.512
http://www.xplanation.com/ email: Paul.Bijnens < at > xplanation.com
***********************************************************************
* I think I've got the hang of it now: exit, ^D, ^C, ^\, ^Z, ^Q, F6, *
* quit, ZZ, :q, :q!, M-Z, ^X^C, logoff, logout, close, bye, /bye, *
* stop, end, F3, ~., ^]c, +++ ATH, disconnect, halt, abort, hangup, *
* PF4, F20, ^X^X, :, KJOB, F14-f-e, F8-e, kill -1 $$, shutdown, *
* kill -9 1, Alt-F4, Ctrl-Alt-Del, AltGr-NumLock, Stop-A, ... *
* ... "Are you sure?" ... YES ... Phew ... I'm out *
***********************************************************************