How to mount a tape and restore from it

[Baski]

Hi Team,

I want mount a tape on the server and copy to other servers.

Master/media: solaris 5.10, NBU 6.5.6

client: Solaris 5.9 , NBU 6.5.5

I want mount the tape like USB ..etc and I want see by using ls -ltr then I should copy by using CP command.

Tape library SL700 storage teck..

[Marianne]

Restores in NBU are done as follows:

You open the Backup, Archive and Restore GUI, then specify source client and policy type and the destination client name.

NBU will display a list of folders that's been backed up in an Explorer-type view. Select files/folders that you want to restore. You can use 'Preview Media' to display media required for restore.
You then click on 'Start Restore'. You receive another window where you can change the destination path on the destination client. When you click OK, NBU will send the restore instruction (including Media id) to the media server that performed the backup.

The media server will mount the tape, locate the requested files and restore to destination client.

Please see Backup, Archive, and Restore Getting Started Guide http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH52806 for more info as well as the Restore process flow diagram in Appendix A of the Troubleshooting Guide: http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH128469.

[Baski]

Hi Marianne,

I know the backup and archive process. I need mount the tape /mnt/tape/TP0012  .. like that. My one of friend did like that, but he didn't tell the process on solaris.

Can you please tell how to mount tape manually on unix file system from there I want see all files by using "ls -ltr" commands.

Pleae help me on this.

Thanks for advance..

[PraveenCH]

Hello Baski,

You can mount the tape in drive from OS and copy the data to a file system. But, you cannot mount the Tape and directly read the data as like a CD or DVD.

On Solaris you can mount the tape using mt command.

--Praveen

[PraveenCH]

Even tapes will have netbackup Images in tar and i dont think its possible to see the data.

[Marianne · Accepted solution]

Based on my Solaris Sysadmin background and NBU knowledge, I am repeating what I said in my initial response: IT CANNOT BE DONE.

You can only mount it like a disk if there is a filesystem on the device that you want to mount.

A NetBackup tape is a collection of TAR images that were written to a raw device file. There is no filesystem on any tape, just backup format of some kind - tar, ufsdump, cpio, etc.. etc...

There is also no OS command to mount a tape - you simply insert a tape in a drive and start using it by addressing the device name, e.g. /dev/rmt/0.

To confirm that the media is accessible, you can check the device status with 'mt -f /dev/rmt/0 stat'. You can also use mt to skip to a different session of the tape to read/write (using TAPE commands such as tar, cpio, ufsdump) with something like 'mt -f /dev/rmt/0cbn fsf 1'. Use man pages to see more mt options. mt is only useful when a tape is in the drive.

You COULD possibly try to use tar to list and/or extract NBU tapes. See NBU Admin Guide for guideline.

I'd like to see your friend proof his method!

[Nicolai]

The only way you can access tape contens with UNIX command if the tape is written in the LTFS (Linear Tape Format Fileystem) format. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_Tape_File_System

Netbackup does not use LTFS but a GNU tar format. Hope this clarify.

[bills]

I remember using ufsdump and ufsrestore ages ago - ufsrestore has an interactive mode that reads in the tape headers, then lets you browse through the directory structure with cd and ls to select what needs to be restored - BUT, restore is not done with the cp command, but with an command internal to the ufsrestore shell.  These would NOT be NetBackup backups....

Is that what you're thinking of?

Bill