The Standalone BACKUP Story

From: Chuck McManis <cmcmanis_at_mcmanis.com>
Date: Fri Apr 6 16:46:55 2001

How to use Standalone Backup

This was one of those times when I really wonder about things. I tried to
find the documentation for Standalone BACKUP on the OpenVMS web site but it
wasn't there. Then when I was moving some old boxes of DEC documentation in
the garage it occurred to me that perhaps something in there could help,
and lo and behold I came upon "OpenVMS System Managers Manual: Essentials"!

I pass on the knowledge gained therein to these two VAX aware lists ...

My goal here was to create a full system image that I could restore from
tape because I had a very noisy sounding RF71 and it needed replacing.

The standalone backup utility is invoked with the command:
$ _at_SYS$SYSTEM:STABACKIT
Where it will ask you the device on which to write the "kit."

In my case I told it TF86$MIA2: which was the device name (from a SHOW
DEVICE command) that was the TF86 tape drive on my 4000. It proceeded to
get a few files done and generate a parity error, and after cleaning the
drive and getting the parity error again, I erased the tape with a BFM
(very powerful magnet) and tried a third time which worked without a hitch.

Once it was done it says:
        Ending time 6-APR-2001 14:24:36.55
        Starting time 6-APR-2001 14:15:43.71

        The kit is complete.
        $

And its done. However, it didn't back up my system files. Just created the
kit. What does the kit do?

Well standalone backup is just that, a backup program that runs without
using any devices or open files etc.

Now according to the OpenVMS manual you put a new tape into the drive and type:
        BACKUP/IMAGE/VERIFY disk-device: tape-device:<some
name>/REWIND/LABEL=SOMELABEL

Then when it asks you if you want to Overwrite the tape in the drive you
type OVERWRITE

Now it will chug and whir and chug some more and back up your entire system
disk to tape.

To get it back, you get that first tape you made with Standalone Backup on
it and you boot it.

Then you swap tapes and type:
        BACKUP/IMAGE/VERIFY tape-device:<same-name>/REWIND/LABEL=SOMELABEL
disk-device:

and off it goes again, this time going the other way.

If you don't want to boot standalone backup your can do this from a 'live'
system by mounting the tape and destination disk using the /FOREIGN option
and using the above backup command. (you can skip the /LABEL option I believe)

Anyway, I did this and now have both a quieter disk and a known good backup
of my system on tape.

--Chuck
Received on Fri Apr 06 2001 - 16:46:55 BST