I need to be able to make a backup image of an OLD UNIX server HD where I can restore the complete HD from scratch if (when) the HD fails. This server runs the accounting system for a company.
I can and have backed the data up via local FTP, but O/S and Apps are so old that I am not sure I could get the right version of the O/S and Apps back to make it work, even with data
The O/S is : SCO SCO_SV scosysv 3.2 5.0.6 i386
It is an HP E800 PIII 800 MHZ with a HUGE 9 GB SCSII HD (Circa 2000)
It also has IDE as well
The server has already failed and I was lucky, I found another and popped the HD in and it came back up. However, it is just a matter of time before the HD goes.
There is a SCSII Tape drive, I am still trying to ascertain if it is actually working. Have ordered new tapes. (they had been using the same two about 7 years)
I have this line in the root crontab file
0 0 * * * find / -print | cpio -ocO /dev/rct0
Not sure if that backs up entire HD and would allow me to restore and have a bootable drive or not.
I would love to be able to make an image of that HD every night (or even realtime) on another HD or, at 9 gb, even USB, but not sure if that version of UNIX supports USB.
I just want to be able to restore and go without risking having to reinstall anything.
A bit more personal background and why they are in this mess in case you are interested. No need to tell me how dangerous and idiotic it is to be in this situation, belive me, I know.
I do not work for or at this company. It was my father's company he built from scratch and knew everything himself inside and out. He passed away about 6 years ago and it just kinds of runs itself and I have to go down and deal with crises (like this one). My father wanted me to keep the company going so that loyal employees that had been with him since the start could work until retirement.
I will be able to retire from my current job in a couple of years and at that point I may move there and fix all these issues correctly. For now, I just put out fires (like this)
I know the equipment is old, but the employees are as well and they are familiar with it and it the does everything they need and the company does not have the $20k+ needed to upgrade at this time.
I am not familiar with SCO, but the command in the crontab will "just" copy the files and directories to the device /dev/rct0, which is most probably your attached tape drive.
This type of backup is not bootable. It misses the boot sector, filesystem structure etc. which is needed, to have bootable backup. It will have your business data in there though.
You could do a copy of the disk with the command dd which will create a file of 9GB, as larges as your disk is, because it copies all bits of your disk. It could be restored with using a bootable medium that gives you a shell from where you can issue dd again, to restore the backup.
The hardware sounds x96 compatible so you could for example try Knoppix (KNOPPIX - Live Linux Filesystem On CD) which is a free Linux bootable system with desktop etc. to issue restore.
Here is some guy that tried something similar:
Maybe it is an option to get a modern x386 PC or server hardware, install a later version of SCO Unix and migrate your application overthere. It could be it is possible by simple copying it's needed files over to the new installed machine. Though I saw the latest release of SCO is 2009 OpenServer X seems to be the continued SCO Unix but I have no clue how compatible to each other.
Does the machine have a floppy drive (that works)?
If so, you can make what is known as a "root & boot" set which will facilitate you getting the machine back on its feet if you have a full tape backup.
To create the "root & boot" floppies login as root and run:
# mkdev fd
which will give you a menu driven interface. Select the options to write out the emergency floppies.
To make a full tape backup capable of disaster recovery you should use cpio NOT tar. (The reason is that tar doesn't backup/restore the device nodes properly in /dev).
Typically:
# cd /
# find . -depth -print|cpio -ov -C10240 -K<tape size in K's> /dev/rct0
Yes, you can leave out the -C switch out but it is more efficient to write 10K blocks to tape. The -K should specify the capacity of each tape so that it calls for the next tape if needed. You should also use the -c switch if you want to write in 'portable' format such as knowing you are going to change platforms.
With a 'root & boot' set you can boot from floppy which contains all the commands needed for recovery, the required boot block copies, etc. So you can use the 'divvy' command to lay out a new hard drive and create the filesystems. The 'dd' command to write out boot blocks 0 and 1.
You can then mount your new empty hard disk root filesystem and restore the whole from tape. Also, restore any non-root filesystems.
That is broadly it. Feel free to ask further questions.
There is better SCO knowledge on this forum than mine so, down the line, you might ask moderators to move this thread to the SCO forum proper where it will be more likely to be seen by the right people.
You used the word RAID in your subject line, but since you only speak of one disk in the post itself, I am going to assume that you have a single SCSI disk.
Here are some approaches you might take.
Corner the market for 9,18,and 33gb scsi disks. You can use disk duplication programs like hdclone to make a copy of your current disk, although you will not be able to change the logical size of the disk. That is, if you copy your 9gb disk to a 33gb disk, when you install the 33gb disk it will still appear to be 9. Put several of these on the shelf, and if the disk fails, install a replacement, and restore the latest tape. Cost 100-200$US per disk.
Toss the tape drive, and install a DVD writer. Purchase Microlite Edge, and do backups of the entire system to dvd. This software also allows you to create a bootable cd/dvd with a menu driven restore procedure. Cost 600US$
Upgrade the entire system to a new I3 processor with 4gb memory and 32gb SSD with DVD and backup to either USB or DVD and SCO 6.0.0. Cost less than 5k (hardware, software and installation.)
Along with the above it might be good to have an idea of how the hard disk is arranged. Accomplished with
divvy /dev/harddiskname
. Also would help to know what accounting program or how it is set up as some go into the /usr or /usr2 areas with all the programs and data there and transferring to a new machine a matter of copying that across.
Yes, to reinforce what edfair says it is extremely useful in a disaster recovery situation to know how the original disk was laid out. Edfair's post#5 is very important. I second that and reinforce it. Didn't mention it myself because I forgot and I've not used SCO for years.
Thanks also to SCO expert jgt for setting out some very good options.
They are still looking for the install media. They should have it, but the company that did the turnkey setup and initial support may have kept it or it may have been lost.
I think it does have a floppy and your solution sounds good and makes sense to me. I think in terms of DOS, it sounds like the floppy is kind of doing what the old dos format c:/s command did? Then, I am just copying files?
I am sure I am over simplifying, if not totally wrong above, but it at least now I know one way to do it.
---------- Post updated at 08:04 AM ---------- Previous update was at 07:54 AM ----------
I only have one disk, but I will put another in, SCSI or IDE or USB as needed.
Right now, I am afraid my Application Software stops me from upgrading. I do not really understand it, but they told me the copy protection in it was tied to the compiler and the compiler to my version of Unix and I would not be able to simply install the software on another machine/hd. That really does not make sense to me, but that is what I understood them to say.
Though it has been upgraded several times, last about 10 or more years ago, our original license is over 20 years old. A complete new system for us is over $20k, probably over $30k, that is why I need to backup what I have.
There are plenty of E800 servers out there and I have already moved this HD once to a new server, right now my critical link is the HD, O/S and APP. (I have the data backed up.)
---------- Post updated at 08:34 AM ---------- Previous update was at 08:04 AM ----------
Last part first. Using Open Systems Inc. Accounting Software for Electric Motor Shops. I think it is a standard commercial accounting package they modify for specific industries, but could say that 100%.
My Data is in a directory off the root called /u. The application is there as well, just not sure if 100% is there, but I can find where all its parts are if needed. I have backed up the /u directory to a windows box using ftp.
Here is the Divvy command without parameters. Let me know if you need it with the specific HD parameter (I am afraid to start typing in parameters for fear of messing up something, but I will if I need to do so)
# divvy
+-------------------+------------+--------+---+-------------+------------+
| Name | Type | New FS | # | First Block | Last Block |
+-------------------+------------+--------+---+-------------+------------+
| boot | EAFS | no | 0 | 0| 15359|
| swap | NON FS | no | 1 | 15360| 277503|
| root | HTFS | no | 2 | 277504| 1534975|
| u | HTFS | no | 3 | 1534976| 5723165|
| u1 | HTFS | no | 4 | 5723166| 8867869|
| | NOT USED | no | 5 | -| -|
| recover | NON FS | no | 6 | 8867870| 8867879|
| hd0a | WHOLE DISK | no | 7 | 0| 8875880|
+-------------------+------------+--------+---+-------------+------------+
8867880 1K blocks for divisions, 8001 1K blocks reserved for the system
If your software is copy protected, then it is highly unlikely that restoring the system from a tape backup will allow you to run the application, as the inode numbers will be different.
Option 1 to continue duplicating disks will work, although you will only be able to restore the data files.
Installing a new system is no where near 20k unless you have a hundred users. I have done 5 in the last 18 months, and the most expensive was 3k. Including one with copy protected software.
The 20k was updating to Windows Server and New version of App. (current version is at least 20 years old)
I just got some additional information. A bit more about the App and copy protection. Quoting maker of software:
"To get our programs and data files to work on Unix, Linux, or Windows we use another layer of software, which is a compiler from a company called Basis. This compiler is what's tied to the Unix system, and the license key is most likely tied to the MAC address of the hard drive. You were very lucky for a number of reasons that when you lost the old system the hard drive was still intact and you found an identical box."
I did not realize a HD had a MAC address, but if I am reading that correctly, backup as I am trying to do is a moot point as the restore will not work on another HD as indicated above. Maybe I am missing something, I can't believe that is correct.
The network card has a mac address, the cpu has a serial number. Of course if the network card is on board then effectively the software is tied to the motherboard. What version of Basis, I have version 1.06 dated June 98.
Well, I am certain the software is not tied to CPU or motherboard as the motherboard on the old server failed and I have already moved HD to another Server and it booted and worked.
After I verified it worked with the replacement MB and CPU, just for the heck of it, I took the CPU and Memory out of the old MB and put in the replacement server to make a powerful Dual Processor 800 Mhz PIII machine with 500 MB ram and 9 GB HD.
There used to be a licencing application which was very popular with software vendors wanting licence control called FlexLM (standing for Flexible Licence Manager). This tied licence security to the MAC address of the network interface. A value was computed on the MAC address which is known as the Hostid.
If your server is running FlexLM it will have a process running the executable 'lmgrd'. See if you've got one of those.
Per my previous post, it is somehow protected via the compiler. Surely the program is not compiled each time it is run like ancient BASIC.
It may be coming into view now, then again, I know just enough to be dangerous. Am I close below:
Their source code runs on multiple Platforms, each platform has to have the object code compiled for its own O/S and specific Hardware.
The compiler is tied to the HD. If I ever have to change HD's the compiler will not compile, so I can never update the program (unless I do it with Assembly language).
If I moved the already compiled code to a new HD and nothing else changed, then it may still run.
If I am way off base above, let me know and I will head another direction, just recalling and trying to relate it to what I remember from old DOS days and compiling Code for mainframe programs.
One of my (now ex) customers had a similar situation with his accounting software. When I finally got to a support person who knew the software it turned out that the program was tied to the system name and everything transferred across and ran with different hardware.
JGT's suggestion about EDGE has worked well for me for many years. The backup is to a hard drive first with EDGE then burn the backup file and keys to CD with another program.
You can find out how much of the file systems are used with du. Your installation is pretty much standard with a /u filesystem and an extra /u1. Didn't check on their sizes.
I really appreciate all of the feedback I am getting in terms of being able to get this thing backed up. Just a quick update on some new info I found in a box packed away by my father.
I as able to locate the original SCO 5.0.6 install CD's AND License Certificate / Code
Also found 3 floppies labeled root, boot, and file system.
I also found the BASIS License Agreement and Product Key, it is the Pro 5, not FlexLM license. I even found a copy of the BASIS compiler software. Unfortunately it was on a 6"cassette type storage tape.
My application is not copy protected, but the BASIS compiler that is required to run it is copy protected and we think it is tied to the HD. However, since I now have the license, I may be able to get BASIS to let me activate it if there is a problem when I copy it to another HD.
This all may be much ado about nothing as I may be able to simply clone the HD with Clonezilla and set it aside, keep my data backup current, and if the drive ever fails, put in the new drive and copy the data to it. At least I have options now.
Again, I really appreciate all the feedback, I am learning slowly, and any additional insight, info, or guidance is appreciated.
Is the Basis tape cartridge fit the tape drive that you have?
Assuming (always dangerous) that the tape is the same format as Basis shipped on diskette, the tap is a tar tape.
If you can find a suitable tape drive, you can extract the data from the tape and copy it to any suitable medium. There is only 5 x 1.44 diskettes in the distribution, so the tape probably has less than 10mb on it.
You can experiment with transferring the system to a new hard drive by acquiring a Pentium4 system, either socket 478 or 775 with ide disk or sata in legacy mode, PS2 keyboard and mouse, and cd/dvd. You should be able to find a suitable system for about 100 dollars.
You can install 506 using the cd only.
Then install Basis, I have the instructions if you don't, and restore the data files from your current system.
I wouldn't reply on magnetic media (root & boot floppies) that have been in a box for years. Magnetic decay means they probably won't work now. Better write your own onto new media.
You can test booting from emergency media without damaging anything on the hard disk of the system.
OpenServer X seems to be the continued SCO Unix but I have no clue how compatible to each other.