Re: Unattended online archival

Daniel Wood (daniel@starsight.com) wrote: : psampat@cronkite.ocis.temple.edu (Pragnesh Sampat) writes: : > Hi, I would like some information on the best way to set up unattended : > (through cron) Informix database achival. : > : > I am running Informix OnLine 5.01 on a Sparc 1000 running Solaris 2.3. My : > dbspaces are on raw disks. : > : > I would like to setup nightly archival of my databases through cron. I know : > that Informix manual suggests that "tbtape" is an interactive program and : > should not be run in background mode. Here is what I have done, : > : > (this is a simplified version) : > ******************************************************************* : > : > mt -f /dev/rmt/0 stat : > if [ $? != 0 ] : > echo "Error!!!!!!!" : > exit : > fi : > : > tbtape -s << END >> ${LOG} 2>&1 : > ^M # "RETURN" for tape ready : > 0 # level 0 : > END : > : > ******************************************************************* : > : > : > There are two problems with this : > : > 1> tbtape keeps on writing ^M into my log file and thus my log file becomes : > unreadable : > : > 2> Inspite of checking status of tape drive with "mt" command tbtape : > encounters a strange error (Error 16 - mount busy) and goes into an : > end less loop of writing error message into the log file, eventually : > filling up my file system and creating a lot of problems. : > : > So the question is whether I should fix my script or should I be using : > some different backup scheme all together (like tbunload or dbexport)? : Here are the last few lines of our fullback script that is run by cron : each night. The system is a SS/10 running Solaris 2.3 . Several notes: : 1. We are backing up all our filesystems and the informix : database to one tape by using a norewind tape. Have you tried to recover using these tapes? OnLine emphatically DOES NOT SUPPORT no-rewind devices. I think it looks for some physical headers. We were able to take the stuff of to no-rewind tapes with no problems, but they would not reload. : 2. Since cron runs this script as root the 'su - informix -c' is : used to do the commands in quotes as informix. Yes, I know : this a security hole, but our DBA is also our sysadmin. If : you have seperate tape drives then the informix backup line : without the su to informix could be put into a script that : is run by cron as informix. : 3. The echo is used to answer both the prompt for a tape and the : prompt for an archive level. Then use of /usr/5bin/echo allows : the use of '\\n'(A new line) to be in the string being echoed. : 4. The pipe'ing of the output through mail allows the sysadmin : to check the results each day. You can also redirect the output of the tbtape to a file. Since the tbtape output is curses-based, it will include various screen control characters, but you can tail -c 50 (or so) to get just the ongoing status of the archive (50% full , etc). : TAIL OF OUR /home/sysadmin/bin/fullback FOLLOWS: : # : # Note use of high-density no-rewind device. : # : DEVICE=/dev/rmt/0hn : #DEVICE=/dev/rmt/1hn : # : # Dump order is /var, /opt, /, /usr, then Informix raw data partition. : # : /usr/sbin/ufsdump 0uf $DEVICE /dev/md/rdsk/d3 : /usr/sbin/ufsdump 0uf $DEVICE /dev/md/rdsk/d5 : /usr/sbin/ufsdump 0uf $DEVICE /dev/md/rdsk/d1 : /usr/sbin/ufsdump 0uf $DEVICE /dev/md/rdsk/d4 : su - informix -c "/usr/5bin/echo '\\n0' | tbtape -s | mailx -s 'Informix Backup' : root" : mt -f $DEVICE offline : -- : Daniel Wood daniel@starsight.com : The opinions expressed herein are those of myself, my employers, the carriers : of this news message or any other messages for that matter, you the reader and : any of your relations(whether by birth or chromosome count), all life forms : and all inanimate objects. -- =========================================================================== jlumbley@netcom.com (Joe Lumbley) BancTec Service Corportation 214-450-9896 Dallas, Texas Watch for my _INFORMIX DBA SURVIVAL GUIDE_ in Fall '94 from Prentice Hall! ===========================================================================