Restoring Personal Data from NetBackup

Marc Petitmermet, IT Support Group (ISG), petitmermet@mat.ethz.ch
Initial Version: 21.5.2001, Last Revision: 04.05.2007

Introduction

• Since February 2001, all servers (see list [1]) of the D-MATL are backed up once a day between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. Therefore, all data stored on these servers can be restored within a short time. The backup is done by the NetBackup services of the Informatik Dienste [2] and supervised by the ISG.

• NetBackup does full backups and incremental backups (backups of changes only). For restoring, full backups are available for 3 to 4 months, incremental backups for 1 month before the tapes are overwritten with new data. Therefore, restoring is available within 1 month for incremental backup and 3-4 months for the full backup.

• If you need to restore data: Do it as soon as possible!

• You do not need to be physically sitting in front of a server to restore your data. You can start a restore from any computer within the ETH with a secure shell application.

• MacOSX: Applications > Utilities > Terminal
  Windows: This platform does not provide a secure shell pre-installed. Use F-Secure, which might be already installed by your administrator, or download PuTTY.exe, a free telnet/ssh client.
  Linux/UNIX: ssh is installed on all our UNIX computers.

Restoring data — General procedure

The procedure of restoring data is demonstrated on the following example:
"I would like to restore the latest version of the NetBackup manual (NetBackup_Anleitung.fm)."

1. Login to the server matl-s19 on which your home directory is physically located:
   • On the Windows platform use F-Secure ssh cleint program to connect to matl-s19
   • On the MacOSX/Linux/Unix platform: ssh matl-s19
   • Login with your username and password
2. (optional) Navigate to the directory where you want to restore the data using the cd command.
   
3. Start up the NetBackup Menu Interface program (bp) in restore modus:
   • /home/yourname> bp -r
     (yourname = your login name)
     The following screen appears; the main restore screen (it may take some time to query the database on the NetBackup server):
   
   

   Figure 1: Main restore screen
   • By using the appropriate letter key (s, e, i, x, l, a, q, h, p, d, m, b, y, k) you can navigate through the NetBackup Interface Program.
   • ESC is used to cancel a task, q to move a level up in the bp program structure and to finally quit the program.
4. Change the Directory Depth (c) to 0 (zero); in this case the maximum possible depth is shown.
   • You see the following screen:
   
   

   Figure 2: Change directory depth (c)
   • After pushing the return key, you are back on the main restore screen (Figure 1).
5. Select Files or directories to be restored:
   • Type the letter "s".
   • The following screen appears (it may take some time to query the database on the NetBackup server). Depending on your amount of different files and folders, the list may be rather long.
   
   

   Figure 3: Select files and directories for restoring (s)
   • The table shows (from left to right): date and time of backup, directory or file; please note the arrow (your current location).
   • By using the appropriate letter keys, you can jump a page back (b) or forward (f), move the arrow single steps down (d) or up (u), select a directory/file to restore (s).
   • Files or directories chosen for restore are marked with an asterisk.
   • The ok (o) brings you back to the main restore screen (Figure 1) after you have chosen your directories/files to restore.
6. On the main restore screen you can choose to review and modify the list of files and directories to be restored (e).
   • You see the following screen:
   
   

   Figure 4: Edit/View selected files
   • The ok (o) brings you back to the main restore screen (Figure 1).
7. Now we restore the selected files/directories by initiating restore (i).
   • Answer the questions which are following.
   • The default answers are usually the one you want.
   • You can change the restore directory in the main restore screen (Figure 1): specify alternate path (a).
   
   

   Figure 5: Restore Screen
   • Pressing any key brings you back to the main restore screen (Figure 1).
8. You can now quit the NetBackup Menu Interface program (q).
9. You can follow the backup process by using the tail UNIX command and reading the log file generated by the restore program:
   • /home/yourname> tail -f /home/yourname/bplog.rest.001
   • Or you can consult the log file after a certain time to verify if the restore is finished:
     /home/yourname> more /home/yourname/bplog.rest.001
   • Restore started Thu Apr 05 10:21:30 2001
     10:22:24 (500769.xxx) Restore job id 500769 will require 1 image.
     10:22:24 (500769.xxx) Media id 100617 is needed for the restore.
     10:22:24 (500769.xxx) Media id 102914 is needed for the restore.
     10:22:24 (500769.xxx) Media id 101600 is needed for the restore.
     10:22:58 (500769.001) Restoring from image created Sat Mar 10 21:00:58 2001
     10:23:00 (500769.001) INF - TAR STARTED
     10:23:01 (500769.001) INF - Waiting for mount of media id 101600 on server miranda.
     10:23:36 (500769.001) INF - Waiting for positioning of media id 101600 on server miranda.
     10:23:50 (500769.001) INF - Beginning restore from server miranda to client condor.ethz.ch.
     10:30:48 (500769.001) /home2/mpetit/admin/NetBackup_Anleitung.fm
     10:30:48 (500769.001) INF - TAR EXITING WITH STATUS = 0
     10:30:48 (500769.001) INF - TAR RESTORED 1 OF 1 FILES SUCCESSFULLY
     10:30:48 (500769.001) INF - TAR KEPT 0 EXISTING FILES
     10:30:48 (500769.001) INF - TAR PARTIALLY RESTORED 0 FILES
     10:30:49 (500769.001) Status of restore from image created Sat Mar 10 21:00:58 2
     001 = the requested operation was successfully completed
     10:30:51 (500769.xxx) INF - Status = the requested operation was successfully completed.
   • The restore took 8 minutes and 25 seconds.
     This duration is strongly dependent on network traffic and on workload of the NetBackup server.
10. The data is now successfully restored!

Restoring data — Single files

Of course there are other procedures to restore data. For example if you would like to restore a single file or directory and you know exactly path and file names.

1. Follow the steps 1 and 2 of procedure above.
2. Now edit/view directly the selected files (e). Add selections (a) to the list.
   • Please note that you MUST use absolute physical paths or the NetBackup server does not find your data! Do not use links!
   • E.g. /home/yourname/...
3. Follow the steps 6 to 9 of procedure above.