Advice on HP-UX system backups

Hello,

forgive me if this seems a bit trivial to you but I am fairly new to HP-ux having worked with AIX for the past 15 years. We have inherited a couple of HP-ux servers without any tape drives and running Hp-ux v11. I am familiar with creating mksysbs on our AIX Nim server for recovery and wondered if something similar can be done those 2 Hp-ux servers. We are backing database up over san using Netbackup but are worried we won't be able to recover the system in the worst case scenario. I have heard there is something called 'Ignite' but again any advice you can give would be appreciated.

Can I only create bootable backups from a network share using Ignite?

I have an nfs mount setup onto our nim and wondered whether we can make use of it this way.

Thanks,
Neil.

Please post the exact version of HP-UX. HP-UX 11 has been out for 15 years and has evolved.

uname -r

The exact version is:

uskux13:/mnt # uname -r
B.11.00

Do you need to know any other details?

Thanks,
Neil.

You will have to use Ignite-UX:

zra1:/home/vbe $ swlist -l product | grep gnite
  Ignite-UX             B.4.4.30       HP-UX System Installation Services 
zra1:/home/vbe $ uname -r
B.11.00
zra1:/home/vbe $ ll /opt/ignite/bin/
total 3114
-r-xr-xr-x   1 bin        bin          15434 Jul 24  2003 add_new_client
-r-xr-xr-x   1 bin        bin          36864 Jul 24  2003 add_release
-r-xr-xr-x   1 bin        bin          46838 Jul 24  2003 bootsys
-r-xr-xr-x   1 bin        bin         106496 Jul 24  2003 check_recovery
-r-xr--r--   1 bin        bin          11232 Jul 24  2003 copy_boot_tape
-r-xr-xr-x   1 bin        bin          16924 Jul 24  2003 fix_patches
-r-xr-xr-x   1 bin        bin         180224 Jul 24  2003 ignite
-r-xr-xr-x   1 bin        bin          36864 Jul 24  2003 instl_adm
-r-xr-xr-x   1 bin        bin          32768 Jul 24  2003 instl_dbg
-r-xr-xr-x   1 bin        bin         311296 Jul 24  2003 itool
-r-xr-xr-x   1 bin        bin          24576 Jul 24  2003 make_arch_config
-r-xr-xr-x   1 bin        bin          16384 Jul 24  2003 make_boot_tape
-r-xr-xr-x   1 bin        bin          18753 Jul 24  2003 make_bundles
-r-xr-xr-x   1 bin        bin         102400 Jul 24  2003 make_config
-r-xr-xr-x   1 bin        bin         106496 Jul 24  2003 make_depots
-r-xr-xr-x   1 bin        bin          21648 Jul 24  2003 make_medialif
-r-xr-xr-x   2 bin        bin         126976 Jul 24  2003 make_net_recovery
-r-xr-xr-x   1 bin        bin         106496 Jul 24  2003 make_recovery
-r-xr-xr-x   2 bin        bin         126976 Jul 24  2003 make_tape_recovery
-r-xr-xr-x   1 bin        bin          28672 Jul 24  2003 manage_index
-r-xr-xr-x   1 bin        bin          40960 Jul 24  2003 print_manifest
-r-xr-xr-x   1 bin        bin          17967 Jul 24  2003 remove_release
-r-xr-xr-x   1 bin        bin          56376 Jul 24  2003 save_config
zra1:/home/vbe $ 

If installed, look at the man pages of make_net_recovery (1M)

Oh shit. HP-UX 11.00 is very old and unsupported.
At that release the Insight make_recovery command only works to a tape deck.
This hardware must be 10-years old or more?

As you stand you will be faced with a cold build in the event of a disaster. Make sure that you have the all original release kits (and any subsequent patches) and that you have 100% accurate documentation of your filesystem layout and a reliable backup of every file (not just the database).

The system documentation script sysinfo.sh should still be available from HP Support. This script finds out enough about your HP-UX 11 system for an expert to rebuild it.

Just read vbe's post. I never got make_net_recovery to work on HP-UX 11.00 . It worked okay on 11.11 .
Comparing the dates in vbe's listing, my file timestamps are even older (2001) .. and I think that those timestamps come from fix kits.

Hello,

Thanks for coming back to me. i know the servers are pretty ancient but we inherited them from another provider and at this time unable to upgrade due to the application that is running on them. I will look at your suggestions and it given me a few leads. At least I know I will have to get Ignite in order to do this so I'll check I have all original media.

Thanks again,
Neil.

What is the ouput of the command model ?
I have a depot file of Ignite for 11.00 (just a question of how to upload somewhere...)

-rwxrwxrwx   1 vbe        bin        56637440 Feb  3  2004 Ignite-UX-11-00_B.4.4.30_HP-UX_B.11.00_32+64.depot
uskux01:/root # model
9000/800/L3000-5x
uskux01:/root # swlist -l product | grep gnite
uskux01:/root # uname -r
B.11.00

Is there a place I can get a copy of Ignite from for this version of HP-ux? We have a dozen of these servers with Ignite being on most but not all of them and wondered where I can get a copy for the right version of my o/s.

Thanks
Neil.

Are all the boxes HP-UX 11.00?
As I said, I have a depot file for you if you have somewhere I can upload it for you...

I you have a dozen of identical boxes (or almost) try to put up two Ignite server to backup the lot and so have one server being able to restore the other in case of HW failure...
By default HP installed the minimum in /opt/ignite/bin in order to have print_manifest... at 11.00 (and so you had no make_recovery...) therefore the first thing I did on machine delivery was to install the complete Ignite-UX...( after first boot and default install...) dont remember for 11.11...

Yes all our servers are HP-ux 11.00. How big is the depot file?

thanks
Neil.

The directory listing posted by @vbe earlier shows that this package is not large.
The Ignite package should be on your release kit, but do apply the fix CDs (at least up to 2001) because I have a recollection that the base release was faulty. This was a long time ago and others may have better recollection.

I'd recommend to backup your file system usning nice tools

or

In case the Ignite didn't do it.

The unix standard dump and restore are also worth a look.