From: Shaun.Racine@intier.com
Date: Fri Feb 14 2003 - 11:17:21 EST
Got 3 responses, many thanks to;
Daniel L Willis
Dr Thomas Blinn
Lindsay Wakeman
** not solved ** - this post to close cycle.
I should have stated that our system is not clustered. The file systems
were not full, only about 18Gb used out of 250+Gb available.
Particularly nasty, says the good doctor. Even more so, after speaking to
the IT guys at my remote site as they do not have a support contract.
Our solution will be in 3 weeks time, we are moving off this ES40 to
another ES40 with HSG80 storage instead of access over nfs. Fingers
crossed.
Thanks once again to repliers!
Shaun
=== Original question ===
Compaq Tru64 UNIX V5.1 (Rev. 732)
Patch kit: T64V51AS0002-20001204 OSF510
We use vdump to backup all our system, including nfs mounted attached
storage (NetApp).
I have found when using vrestore, some restored files from the nfs system
are just full of null characters (found using od -a), although the file
itself is the correct length. The majority of files restore OK - but as
you guys and gals know majority is not good enough for a production system
=)
At first I imagined a problem with the tape media, but subsequent testing
vdumping to an ordinary local disk file gave the same results. It also
does not appear to be when a file is open during backup, because files
which I know are not open contain nulls, but other files which were likely
to be open can be restored OK.
I thought vdump was able to backup any mounted system, including nfs.
Has anyone come across the same problem with vdump/vrestore?
Should I adjust my backup strategy? - suggestions welcome!
=== Willis, Daniel L. ===
Hi Shaun,
I have seen files with null characters that show the correct file size as a
result of a bug on V5.1 clusters. It is easily reproduced.
When a file system fills to 100% on the serving member, an error message is
produced and the operation fails as expected. On any of the other members
(and NFS clients), the operation appears to complete and the file generated
looks correct from a ls -l but the file is really sparse with nulls at the
end of the file.
This bug has nothing to do with vdump/vrestore. Could these files have been
created with a full file system? HP has a patch for this in V5.1A. We had
it back ported to V5.1.
Dan
=== Dr Thomas.Blinn ===
What you describe should not be happening. It sounds like a particularly
nasty problem. If you have a support contract with us, you should place
a support call and get this escalated as a "data corrupter" which it is.
I don't personally have convenient access to the "problems fixed in the
next patch kit for V5.1" list, so I can't tell you whether what you say
you have seen is a known problem or is fixed; but if you have support,
you need to get this into the formal problem system so that someone will
work on it.
Tom
=== Wakeman, Lindsay ===
Shaun
As far as I know vdump may *only* be used with AdvFS filesystems. You need
to use the standard dump/restore commands for NFS filesystems.
Lindsay
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