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Tivoli Storage Manager for NetWare Backup-Archive Client Installation and User's Guide

Server Specific Information

When a server is lost due to a hard disk failure or disaster, the server object can be replaced by Tivoli Storage Manager backup data during the NetWare installation process by restoring the server specific information resource via Tivoli Storage Manager.

Ensure that the server specific information is being backed-up on regular basis. The server specific information will be backed up on NetWare 5.1 and 6.1 servers as part of the incremental backup process if you specify the all-local domain in the client options file dsm.opt. If you specify the all-local domain, the incremental process always backs up server specific information first, before the SYS: volume. You can also explicitly specify server specific information in the domain statement, as follows:

   domain all-local (implicit)
   domain serverspecificinfo (explicit)

You can also selectively backup the server specific information as follows:

   load dsmc selective serverspecificinfo

You can verify that the server specific information is backed up by querying the node's file spaces from the admin or backup client. There should be a file space called servername\SERVERSPECIFICINFO associated with the node.

To restore a server which has failed with server specific information available:

  1. After the server failure, restore the server specific information to another server so that it can be used during the server installation process. For example, you have two NetWare servers, SERVER-A and SERVER-B. SERVER-A experiences a failure and must be restored. Restore the server specific information of SERVER-A onto SERVER-B by issuing the following command from SERVER-B:
       load dsmc restore server-a/serverspecifcinfo server-b/serverspecificinfo -replace=yes
    

    The server specific information for SERVER-A is restored to the following location:

       server-b/sys:\system\server-a
    

    Note: If the NetWare server name you are restoring is more than eight characters, the directory name created during the server specific information restore is truncated to eight characters.

    Tivoli Storage Manager restores the following files during the server specific information restore:

    SERVDATA.NDS
    Contains the information needed by the NetWare installation procedure to restore the server object to its original state.

    DSMISC.LOG
    A text file containing various NDS information, including the server's replica list.

    VOLSINFO.TXT
    A text file which contains the full server name (i.e., if the directory name had been truncated), a list of volumes present on the server at the time of the last server specific information backup, the name spaces and extend file formats (e.g., compression) enabled on the volumes. This file is meant to aid the user during server recovery.

    AUTOEXEC.NCF
    The server's autoexec.ncf file.

    STARTUP.NCF
    The server's startup.ncf file.
  2. Reinstall the NetWare operating system on the failed server. You must specify the same FILE SERVER NAME and the same IPX INTERNAL NET number if you wish to recover the server object properly. You can find this information in the failed server's autoexec.ncf file, which is restored with the server specific information (see point above). Follow the NetWare installation instructions until you are prompted to install NDS.
  3. Restore the NDS server object from the backup copy. When prompted for the directory tree in which you want to install the server, follow these steps:

After restoring the server object back into the NDS, you can proceed to restore the rest of the operating system from backup; you will not need to copy the rest of the files normally copied during the install process. Please refer to NDS Restore Considerations for more information about restoring the NetWare servers and NDS in their entireties.


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