Networker

Re: [Networker] networker afs and kstart

2005-09-20 16:01:35
Subject: Re: [Networker] networker afs and kstart
From: rader AT GINSENG.HEP.WISC DOT EDU
To: NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 14:57:23 -0500
 > From: Bill Hewitt
 > Anyone used kstart with networker to back up afs filesystems ?

We did that kinda thing--used NetWorker and reauth to do ordinary
NetWorker backups of our AFS files in the past.  On the whole,
it worked well.  But it had problems....

 1) Important AFS native stuff like root.afs, root.cell, ACLs,
 volume meta-data and mount points did not not get backed up.

 2) Backups of AFS file space with lots of small files was very,
 very slow--around 50 KB/sec IIRC.

 3) The by-default scheduled bos restart (4am Sunday?) sometimes
 caused backups to fail.  But the CW on the OpenAFS ML is that the
 old bos restart is not needed, so it can be safely removed.


I think some AFS cells do vos backupsys, then vos dump their .backup
volumes to disk, and then back up the vos dump files with NetWorker.
With enough disk space and some scripting, that might be a decent
solution.


I've written a package called "NetWorkerAFS" that stuffs native
vos dump/restores streams in to/out of NetWorker save streams.
You could give that a try--but if you're going to use it in a
production environment, please thoroughly test it yourself!

steve 
- - - 
systems & network manager
high energy physics
university of wisconsin

 http://ginseng.hep.wisc.edu/NetWorkerAFS.txt

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