Learn how to restore network ignite backup on the HPUX server. Learn how to restore some other server’s OS backup on diff server provided hardware model is same

Ignite backup is an OS backup for HPUX OS. Ignite-Ux is a licensed tool developed by HP for its proprietary OS HPUX. Ignite backup can be taken on local tape or over the network on the Ignite server. In this post, we will be seeing how to restore network ignite backup on HPUX.

Pre-requisite :

Login to Ignite server and confirm below points :

• Ignite backup of server is available under /var/opt/ignite/clients/<MAC of machine> directory
• Directory ownership is bin:bin
• Directory permissions are 755
• One spare IP with same subnet of Ignite server for installation

Restoration :

Power up your server on which network ignite backup needs to restore. Halt boot process at EFI shell. Enter EFI shell to build your boot profile. Boot profile is profile which has booting options like boot path, network path, setting up boot network parameters for current server etc.

On EFI prompt, you need to execute below command to build your boot profile :

EFI> dbprofile -dn testprofile -sip x.x.x.x -cip x.x.x.x -gip x.x.x.x -m 255.255.255.0 -b "/opt/ignite/boot/nbp.efi"

in which,

• -sip is Ignite server IP on which backup resides
• -cip is machine IP to be used to boot machine with (spare IP I mentioned earlier)
• -gip is gateway IP
• -m is subnet mask
• -b is boot path
• -dn is profile name

Here we are building a profile with a name testprofile and related network parameters using which machine will boot and look for backup.

Now, boot your machine over LAN with this profile using below command from EFI shell:

EFI> lanboot select -dn testprofile

This will boot machine with taking himself IP defined in cip, with a gateway in gip, and will search for boot path on Ignite server sip. Once its query reaches the ignite server, it checks the MAC address from which query is generated and then serves backup boot path from the directory with that MAC address title. That’s why we checked permission and ownership previously.

Once everything goes smoothly, you will be served with a text-based GUI installation menu on your putty terminal. You can go ahead with the installation and restore network ignite backup.

Restoring serverA backup on serverB :

In the above method, it’s mandatory to have a backup of the same machine in place at the Ignite server to restore. In case you do not have backup and wish to restore another server’s backup then it can be done. The only thing is both machine’s hardware model should be the same.

For example, if you have serverA backed up on the Ignite server and want to restore this backup on serverB then it’s possible with a bit of trick provided serverA, and serverB should have the same hardware model.

For such instance, you need to copy an existing backup directory to the new one. The new directory should be named with the MAC address of serverB. MAC address of the new server can be obtained using lanaddress command in EFI shell in case it’s not installed with OS. After copying makes sure ownership and permissions are intact.

Once copy is done , you can follow above process and get the restore done!