RE: Level 0 archive restore on Informix 7.24

That is the way. i did it the last weekend. in two sessions one to the restore and the another to rewind before yes to continue. > -----Mensaje original----- > De: William Rice [SMTP:ricew@operamail.com] > Enviado el: Monday, November 29, 1999 11:58 AM > Para: Rajesh; informix-list > Asunto: RE: Level 0 archive restore on Informix 7.24 > > I do believe that doing the following works. > > This requires two sessions. > > session 1: > 1.Get the tape to the beginning of the ontape backup > 2. Make TAPEDEV no rewind devices > 3. ontape -r > 4. Continue as normal until after it lists all the databases its going to > restore. > You are then asked whether or not you want to continue. > At this point use your second session to reposition the tape > to the beginning of the backup. > 5. Answer yes to continue. > > I am reciting all this from memory. I don't have a test box to make sure > I > am remembering everything correctly. > > > The following is just a hypothesis and as far as I know only has a > basis > in my reality :) > > Here is what I think ontape does. > It reads the header off of the backup device and displays that information > to > the terminal. Itthen expects the tape device to have rewound because its > a rewindable device. It then expects to have to go over the header again > but it is already passed the header so it gets confused and aborts. So > what step 4 does, is put the tape back where ontape expected > it to be when it starts the actual restore. > > Hope this helps > Will > > > >===== Original Message From "Rajesh" <kapur@attglobal.net> ===== > >Thanks for the response. You are right... rmt0.1 is the non-rewind option > >for rmt0. The rewind/non-rewind option come into effect at the end of the > >read operation. That is why "dd if=/dev/rmt0.1 of=/temp/ddarc bs=16k" > will > >work as well as /dev/rmt0. The only difference between the two operations > is > >that after using /dev/rmt0, the tape will rewind whereas for rmt0.1 it > will > >not. We did restore the database archive using dd because we know that > the > >first file is only a tape directory worth a few kilobytes but we had a > 2GB > >file at the end of the dd restore. > > > >Our database is 2.6 GB. Is that the reason why our restores might be > >failing? What are my options for a database larger than 2 GB? > > > >Thanks!!! > >========================================= > >I'm a bit confused. Is /dev/rmt0.1 a no-rewind device? If so, you can't > >restore from it directly because ontape incorporates a rewind near the > >begining of its restore operations. > > > >So, one alternative is to dd to file system (provided the archive is < > >2GBytes in size). Which is what you've done, except, so far as I can > see, > >you've not dd'd the ontape archive but whatever's at the beginging of the > >tape. > > > >Shouldn't you be doing?: > >mt -t /dev/rmt0 rewind > >mt -t /dev/rmt0.1 fsf 1 > >dd if=/dev/rmt0.1 of=/temp/ddarc bs=16k > > > >Or am I missing something? > > > >Neil Truby > >Londis Stores > >Hampton Hill, UK > > > >================================================== > > > >Rajesh wrote in message <384001e6_4@news1.prserv.net>... > >>I am new to Informix Database Administration. We are running Informix > 7.24 > >>on RS-6000 AIX version 4.2.1.0. Our daily backup scripts stack the level > 0 > >>archives on device /dev/rmt0.1. We are trying to restore a level 0 > archive > >>from the tape to a newly built system as follows.... > >> > >>mt -t /dev/rmt0 rewind > >>mt -t /dev/rmt0.1 fsf 1 > >> > >>We then changed the onconfig file to point TAPEDEV to /dev/rmt0.1 and > >>started the "ontape -r". The initial dbspace information is displayed > and > >>the program asks if we would like to proceed followed by if we would > like > >to > >>save the last log. After this, the restore simply comes back with the > >>"program ended" message with no diagnostics. > >> > >>We then tried to use dd to restore the archive to disk and then use it > from > >>there. > >> > >>dd if=/dev/rmt0 of=/temp/ddarc bs=16k > >> > >>The file restores to disk but after changing the TAPEDEV to /temp/ddarc > and > >>starting "ontape -r", the program simply does not even show the dbspace > >>information. It simply gives error opening /temp/ddarc file message with > an > >>error code 1 and stops. > >> > >>Anyone faced these problems before? Restoring a database from a tape > should > >>be a fairly standard procedure. > >> > >>Thanks!!! > >> > >> > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > This e-mail has been sent to you courtesy of OperaMail, as a free > service from > Opera Software, makers of the award-winning Web Browser, Opera. Visit > us at > http://www.opera.com/ or our portal at: http://www.myopera.com/ Your free > e-mail > account is waiting at: http://www.operamail.com/ > ------------------------------------------------------------