JerryLawson wrote:
> We need to document a bare metal recovery process for Sun Solaris - 2.7 if it 
> matters, but I'd prefer the procedure to be independent if at all possible.  
> As a basic procedure, it would seem to me that the basic process would be:
>
> 1.      Restore the OS from the installation CD Rom
> 2.      Reinstall ADSM
> 3.      Restore the rest of the machine.

I believe that it's common to use JumpStart to perform step 1 and
possibly step 2.  This can help with automating the reinstall of the OS
and apps, but it has other issues (see below).

In addition, the disconnect between steps 1 and 3 are a real problem in
many cases.  Since the reinstalled OS doesn't know about the data and/or
apps that you restore from TSM, you have to manually piece together the
connections between them.  For example, an application won't have its
daemon started from the inittab after the restore, or the OS product
database won't know that the app is installed.

> 2.      If the above procedure is correct, what do you do for any maintenance 
> or upgrades of the OS?

That's a good question.  You need to keep your JumpStart or other
definitions in exact sync with any changes made to the system, otherwise
you won't reinstall the right level.  And of course you won't get all of
your configuration back in any case, since you're doing a reinstall
rather than a restore.

> 3.      On an RS6K, there is a MAKESYSB command to create a backup tape for 
> this sort of situation.  Is there an analogous command for Solaris?

Unfortunately there's nothing on Solaris (or HP-UX for that matter) that
even does what mksysb does for you on AIX.  ufsdump is sometimes used to
save a filesystem's data, but the filesystem must be either unmounted,
or you must be in maintenance mode to ensure a consistent backup.
ufsrestore can then be used to restore the data, but it assumes an
existing filesystem, and doesn't do anything to re-create the
partitions, filesystems, etc. as needed.

If you're interested in a commercial solution, our Bare Metal Restore
product (http://www.tkg.com/bmr) restores the entire machine just from
your ADSM/TSM backup, so you don't need any additional backup
procedures, and it guarantees that you'll get back to the state as of
your last ADSM/TSM backup.  The 1.2 release that's coming out this month
supports AIX, Solaris, and HP-UX (the current 1.1 release supports AIX).

              -----------------------------------
Peter Jeffe               peter AT tkg DOT com              512.433.3346
The Kernel Group, Inc.                         http://www.tkg.com
ZeroFault Memory Debugger finds memory leaks and bugs in minutes!