Restoring using BackupEDGE
If you are using UNIX or Linux based system, BackupEDGE from Microlite is an excellent backup package. Very powerful and easy to use, with the ability to use a master and incremental scheme, if so desired.
The part that is not so clear with BackupEDGE, is if you want to restore a single file, or single directory. The menu has these options, and many users will go through the menu, type in the file that they want to restore (say /usr/data/MyFILE). They then wait for the tape to run all the way through, only to find out that nothing ended up being restored.
The issue here, is the way that BackupEDGE names the files when it writes them to tape.
It is often desirable to restore files and directories to a location other than where the file originally resided. The common need for this is the case where you want to pull a file off of the backup tape to look at it, but you do not want to replace your existing file. If the files were always restored to there original location, then you would have to move the existing file, restore from tape, move the restored file, and then move the existing file back to the original location. During this time, you original file would not be accessible through your software.
So, in order to be able to restore to an alternate location, BackupEDGE saves the files with relative, instead of absolute, path names. It does this, by putting a "." in front of the file name. This means that /usr/data/MyFILE is written to tape as ./usr/data/MyFILE.
What does this mean to you when you want to restore? When you put in the file name (or directory name), you put in the initial ".", followed by the filename. In other words, you tell it you want to restore "./usr/data/MyFILE".
Now, since the file is using a relative path, instead of an absolute one, the directory that you are in when you do the restore is relevant. If you want to overwrite your original file, and go back to the one on tape, you must be in the root ("/") directory. If you are in another directory, it will restore the file under that directory. So, if you are in /tmp for example, you would end up with the file being /tmp/usr/data/MyFILE. Which, of course, would be what you wanted, if you did not want to replace the original file, and just needed the one from tape to check something.
For help with BackupEdge and other UNIX or Linux software and system contact us at CCS Retail Systems, Inc.
Dave.