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Is fscat an unsupported tool? backup and recovery....

Chris_Lo
Level 3

I have found the tools seems to be as good as "dd" for snapshot vxfs filesystem. but the man page does not document the proper restore method. if it can read the vxfs out and stored as a file.

Then it is possible to do "fs-based" (or nearly-raw) backup to a big file and backup the bigfile.

i.e.
to backup
vxassist -g testdg make testlv 10g
mount -F vxfs -o snapof=/dev/vx/dsk/testdg/originallv /dev/vx/dsk/testdg/testlv /mnt
fscat -f /otherfs/bigfile /dev/vx/dsk/testdg/testlv
backup /otherfs/bigfile

to restore
restore bigfile to /otherfs
fscat -f /dev/vx/sdk/testdg/originallv /otherfs/bigfile

possible?
supported?

thanks.

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Accepted Solutions

Marianne
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Seems it is supported:

http://sfdoccentral.symantec.com/sf/4.1/solaris/manpages/vxfs/fscat_vxfs_1m.html
http://sfdoccentral.symantec.com/sf/5.1/solaris/manpages/file_system/man/html/man1m/fscat_vxfs.1m.html

fscat provides an interface to a VxFS snapshot file system similar to that provided by the dd command when dd is invoked on the block or character special file of a regular VxFS file system. fscat works when executed on the special device of any VxFS file system.

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Gaurav_S
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I would say it might be a un-tested tool by Symantec ... unfortunately whatever is untested would be unsupported for Symantec..

Gaurav


Marianne
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Seems it is supported:

http://sfdoccentral.symantec.com/sf/4.1/solaris/manpages/vxfs/fscat_vxfs_1m.html
http://sfdoccentral.symantec.com/sf/5.1/solaris/manpages/file_system/man/html/man1m/fscat_vxfs.1m.html

fscat provides an interface to a VxFS snapshot file system similar to that provided by the dd command when dd is invoked on the block or character special file of a regular VxFS file system. fscat works when executed on the special device of any VxFS file system.

Chris_Lo
Level 3

I figured that I'd be just better off using "vxdump" instead of "fscat" because

1) fscat is very less spoken tool

2) as with "dd", when dealing with very large volume (hundreds of gigabyte of a filesystem or big volume, it is hard to manage). Restore would be hard and need to cross some fingers...

3) reason I asked is, practically, because I am stuck with a system without vx flashsnap or checkpoint functionality and attempt to do a "time" consistent backup over a very big filesystem.

4) vxdump works for snap-ed filesystems. despite it maybe "just-a-little" slower than "fscat" (i guess, didn't time it). I could also pipe the vxdump output to a bigfile (of a big temp fs) if I really need to.

Thank you very much.
Chris

Gaurav_S
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my bad :( .. not sure why I didn't got that in my search ..

Chris_Lo
Level 3

I have an off-topic question. regarding vxrestore.
The vxrestore speed seems to be limited by the blocking factor (-b 63 is max). How can I make it faster...?