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CHAPTER 14 Restore Procedures

14.1 Introduction

Backup Professional file recovery/verification utility is used to restore files and directories to client machines and verify previous backups.

The Restore utility displays a graphical view of the backups for a client machine through a calendar (Figure 59).

FIGURE 59. Xrestore Main Screen

14.2 Selecting a Client

To restore files for a client machine, you must first select the client machine. You do this by selecting a host from the Client combo box. Upon selection, the calendar will display the current month and highlight the days that contain backups of the client.

14.3 Authentication

Certain operations that lead to restoring files are considered sensitive and must be authenticated. Authentication is determined automatically or by entering the Supervisor Account and password. If the user running the restore utility is the supervisor or the root user, authentication is automatic. Otherwise, authentication will be requested for the following conditions:
· User selects a client to view/restore files that is not the running host
· User attempts to restore from a backup not created by the user on the running host

If authentication fails, the operation is not permitted. If authentication is successful, any restore request will be run with the account and privileges of the supervisor. Assigning the supervisor account and password is performed through the Administration utility on the Backup Professional server.

14.4 Selecting a Backup Date

Once you have selected the client to restore, the calendar will be set with the known backup dates for the client. A calendar day that appears in a 3D frame contains one or more backups for that day. You may select a month by using the [Month] pulldown menu. Any months without backups will be grayed-out and not selectable. The same applies to selecting a year from the Year combo box.

14.5 Choosing the Backup

After you select a day from the calendar, a list of backups for the client that occurred on the selected day is displayed. Click on any item in the list to specify the backup to restore or to verify. Select the [Restore] or [Verify] button at the bottom of the window. A final dialog (Figure 62) is displayed that allows you to set any restore/verify options before queueing the request to the server.

14.6 Restore by File Versions

FIGURE 60. Search File Versions Dialog

Display the Search File Versions dialog with the [Browse->By File Versions] menu. This dialog allows you to locate a specific backup version of a file. Enter a filename with or without wildcards to specify the name to search for. You cannot specify an entire path. Doing so will produce an undefined behavior. This functionality is concerned with filenames only.

If you are familiar with Unix extended regular expressions, you can enter them as well, but make sure you have set the Regular Expression toggle button. Setting the Ignore Case toggle button will display matches of the filename or pattern regardless of capitalization.

A note about using wildcards, Regular Expression, and Ignore Case toggle buttons. These are very expensive options as far as time is concerned. These options must traverse every filename that Backup Professional has ever seen for the client, and lookup their versions. This can be time consuming depending on the number of backups of the client. We are not talking hours; Just minutes. Still, it is nowhere near as fast as if you know the exact filename, in which case the search will only take seconds.

Limit the scope of the search, actually a filter once the file versions have been found, by specifying a size or date modified. Specify the size of At Least or At Most some number of kilobytes. If you are not interested in size, set the option menu to None. The date modified area allows you to specify a time range when the file might have been modified.

FIGURE 61. File Versions Dialog

After pressing the [OK] button in the Search File Versions dialog (Figure 60), the database will search for references to the filename and display them in the File Versions dialog (Figure 61). This allows you to choose a single file to restore by selecting it from a list of backups on which the file appears. All backup versions of the file are listed for the current selected host in the File Versions dialog (Figure 61). Choose a version of the file from the list, you may only choose one item, and press [Restore] to set the options and restore the file.

14.7 Selecting Files to Restore

FIGURE 62. Xrestore Options Dialog

Once you select a backup, click the [Restore] button at the bottom of the form. This will manage the Restore Options dialog (Figure 62), where you set various restore options (see "Recovery/Verify Options" on page 187) and select files to recover using the [Browse] button in the top section of this dialog. The backup files list is an extended selection list. That is, you can select any number of items (which may be non contiguous) within the list. To select items in this list, you may:

· <MB1> and Drag with mouse button #1 down.
· <Shift><MB1> to select any noncontiguous item(s).
· <MB1> alone, which deselects any previous selections and selects the current item.

When you have selected the files to restore, click on the [Done] button. Start the restore by pressing the [Ok] button at the bottom of the options dialog.

14.8 Recovery/Verify Options

These options allow you to tailor the recovery or verification.

14.8.1 Restore to Client

This option is available from the server only when performing a restore and may require the Supervisor Override. This option allows you to specify the client to which the files are restored. Say for instance, you want to restore files from Machine A to Machine B. First, select Machine A and a backup date from the main calendar window. Then use this option to specify Machine B.

14.8.2 Target Directory

The Target Directory allows you to specify the directory on the client machine where the restore will be executed. This allows you to restore the file(s) to a directory other than the original backup starting directory. The target directory must already exist on the system to which you are restoring files. By default, backups use a starting directory of root (/). For backups that contain volumes, such as MS-DOS and Novel, you must prefix the start directory with the volume-name: for example, D:/tmp.

14.8.3 Flat Restore (files only, no folders)

Ignore all directory hierarchy information on the backup and restore the files to the target directory. For example, if you specify the Start Directory as /tmp, all files restored from the backup would be placed into that single directory.

14.8.4 Select Files...

You select the files you wish to include or exclude by using this option. If no files have been selected for inclusion, all files from the backup are restored. This option is not selectable if you are restoring via File Versions.

14.8.5 Remote Commands

These options allow you to run commands on the machine to which you are restoring files. You may specify commands to be run before and/or after the restore. The commands must be in the restore machine's native command language. For security reasons, the specified commands must exist in or below the $BP_BINDIR directory. For example, this feature can be used to stop and start a database engine. See "Before/After Commands Specification" on page 331 for more information.

14.8.6 Restore Device

A device must always be selected as the tape or disk-to-disk device to use to restore the file(s). The default is taken from the database for the particular backup number you are viewing. The Blocksize field may be modified for an alternate blocking factor. This must be the block size used during the backup. To set these values, you may enter by hand a device name in the text box, or choose one from the combo list by clicking on the down arrow.

14.8.7 Switches

These options toggle restore switches. They are not available for a backup verification. The switches are:
Non Destructive
Will NOT overwrite any existing files during the restore.
Restore Newer Files Only
Restore a file only if its date is newer than the existing file on the filesystem. If the file does not exist on the filesystem, the file is restored.
Set File Dates To Today
When a file is restored, set the last modification date of the file to today.
Swap Byte Order
This option is useful only when restoring a foreign TAR tape, one that was not created with Backup Professional. When data is written to a tape, it is written in the host machine's byte order. If you are restoring a tape from a machine whose byte order differs from yours, i.e., Sun to 386 PC, you need to use this option.
No Unix Text Conversion
Will not convert new lines to CR-LF when restoring Unix text files to MS-DOS systems.
Old Client (Version 1.2xx)
This is turned on when restoring files to a different target directory using an old client (version 1.2xx).

14.8.8 Starting the Restore

A final dialog box is displayed, directing you as to which tape to put on-line. Follow the directions, click on the [OK] button, and after a few minutes you have restored your files.

If you are working from the Backup Professional server, you see the progress of the restore in the task monitor. You can see the amount of data that is being scanned and or restored. Keep in mind, that the amount of data shown is not necessarily the amount of data restored since scanning data is also included in this number. Also, if you specify use wild-cards in a list of files to restore, the product will scan the entire tape or disk-to-disk device for all instances of files. Wild-card patterns could match files anywhere on the archive device.

If your file list contains a directory, the product will scan the entire device looking for all instances of files in this directory. The reason for this is that sometimes during the original backup a file is locked initially and must be obtained later. Files such as this are placed physically at the end of the backup.

For every queued restore, the Task Progress Monitor displays queued tasks for the local machine. The status of a task is displayed by selecting a task from the list. By viewing the status, you can determine the progress and any problems that might arise with the restore. It is suggested that you run this only from the client menu as the server has a more robust task monitor under the administration menu.

If you wish to see a file-by-file running status of the restore, select the [File->Viewer] menu item to run the task viewer. Once the task is running on the local machine, you may select it from the list in the viewer to watch the files scroll by.

14.9 Remote Control of Restore Facility

Backup Professional XWindow utilities have options to remotely control functionality within the application. Remote control is of interest when you have a script or program that needs to interact with BP. Remote control of a BP XWindow application is accessed from the command-line by running the application with the -remote option. Specify the -remote option as in the following example:
xrestore -remote "NoOp()"

When a BP XWindow application gets the -remote option, it first checks to see if another application of its type is running on the same display. If found, arguments to the -remote option are formed into an action and passed to the running application. If the application is not found to be running on the display, the current process will start as normal and handle the action(s). You can specify multiple -remote options on the command-line to run multiple actions.

14.9.1 Remote Restore Actions

The remote actions defined for xrestore are as follows:

NoOp()
Simply raises the window of the found application.
OpenProfile([profile_path])
Opens the default profile or the profile specified in profile_path.
LastIncremental([client_name])
Selects the last incremental backup for the current client or the client specified in client_name, and prepares the user to begin the restore.
LastMaster([client_name])
Selects the last master backup for the current client or the client specified in client_name, and prepares the user to begin the restore.
ShowTasks()
Displays the task viewer and selects the currently running task for the user.
ShowViewer()
Starts the backup file viewer and selects the currently running task to display the files as they are backed up.
SaveProfile([profile_path])
Saves the current settings to the default profile or the profile specified in profile_path.


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