Gavin,

Since, you state that libc.so.1 and libsocket.so.1 are open at *restore*
time not at *backup* time, it doesn't sound like your backups are
necessarily corrupt.  It's sounds like you are just not able to restore over
an open file.

Why are the libraries open?  Are you in multi-user mode when you do the
restore?  If so, boot from cdrom or the net and bring your system up in
single user mode.  Establish your network connectivity.   Mount /usr to
/a/usr and use the ADSM Command Line Interface to restore the files in /usr
to /a/usr.

I've successfully restored Solaris 2.4 systems.  I've never encountered
the problem you describe.

Granted, you have to jump through some hoops because ADSM does not backup the
character special files, named pipes and block special files in the /
partition. We get around this by executing a ufsdump of / every night on our
Solaris ADSM clients.  The ufsdumps are backed up via ADSM.

I too am curious how others are restoring Solaris systems.  We know the
method we have in place works.  We're just not certain that there's not
a better method.

Phil New  (philip.new AT seag.fingerhut DOT com)
Fingerhut Inc.