HP-UX System Administrator's Guide: Routine Management Tasks HP-UX 11i v3 (B3921-90023, September 2010)

Backing Up Your Data Using the fbackup Command
The /usr/sbin/fbackup command is the recommended HP-UX backup utility. The
fbackup command can do the following:
• indicate specific files or directories to include or exclude from a backup
• specify different levels of backup on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis
• create an online index file
• when used in conjunction with the crontab utility, can automate backups
NOTE: As fbackup does its work, it will not back up files that are active (open) when
it encounters them. For this reason, it is best to back up your system when there are
few or no users logged in. If you can do so, you should change your system's run-level
to the system administration state (singe-user mode) before using fbackup. This will
insure that you are the only one logged in when the backup is run. As a result, a
minimum number of files will be active, thereby reducing the number of files that are
intended for, but not include in, the backup.
When changing to the single-use state, all the subdirectories are unmounted. Therefore,
you must remount them if necessary before backup up. For information about changing
to the single-user state, see shutdown(1M). If you shut down the system to single-user
state, mount the file systems (other than root (/) that you want backup up.
General Procedure for Using the fbackup Command
To use the fbackup command:
1. Ensure that you have superuser capabilities.
2. Ensure that files you want to back up are not being accessed. The fbackup command
will not back up files that are active (opened) or locked.
3. Verify that the backup device is properly connected.
4. Verify that the backup device is turned on.
5. Load the backup device with write-enabled media. If the backup required additional
media, fbackup will prompt you when to load or change media.
6. If possible, change to a single-user state. Then mount any directories you want to
back up.
7. Create the backup using fbackup. For example, the command:
fbackup -f /dev/rmt/0m -i /home
can be used to back up the entire contents of /home to the device file /dev/rmt/
0m. For more information on fbackup, see fbackup(1M). For more information
about the /dev file formats, see the Configuring HP-UX for Peripherals manual and
see mt(7).
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