3 SPARC HARD DISK BACKUP

Like any other FIERA Controller part, a spare Hard Disk must exist for the FIERA SPARC of each Instrument for the replacement in case of failure.

The spare Hard Disk must contain an exact copy of the contents of the SPARC Hard Disk installed on an Instrument: for this reason the Spare Hard Disk must be updated every time the Instrument SPARC Hard Disk contents are modified (e.g., a VLT Software upgrade).

This section provides a description of the procedures for the backup of a FIERA SPARC Hard Disk on a spare Hard Disk unit.

3.1 Hardware requirements

In order to create an Instrument spare Hard Disk, containing the up-to-date backup of the FIERA SPARC Hard Disk, the following system is required (see Fig.2):

1. an "Instrument FIERA SPARC", whose Hard Disk has to be copied,

2. a "Telescope Control Room (TCR) Workstation", with no particular requirements about hardware or Operating System (it is needed just to log in remotely to the "Instrument FIERA SPARC"),

3. a SPARC "Dump Workstation" running Solaris 2.X, with a SCSI connection for a second Hard Disk and connected to:

4. a DAT tape device,

5. a DDS-2 (120 m/Native Capacity 4 GB) tape,

6. a Hard Disk of the same type of the FIERA SPARC Hard Disk to be backed up.

Fig.2 - Hardware Configuration

Since all the FIERA SPARC Hard Disks have their SCSI Id equal to 3, the boot Hard Disk of the "Dump Workstation" (3.) must have the SCSI Id equal to 0, in order to prepare the spare Hard Disk as a perfect copy of the Instrument FIERA Hard Disk¹.

3.2 System requirements

In order to create an Instrument spare Hard Disk, containing the up-to-date backup of the FIERA SPARC Hard Disk, the following system configuration is required:

· The "Dump Workstation" connected to the DAT device (3. in par. 3.1) must be reachable² from the "Instrument FIERA SPARC" (1. in par. 3.1).

· The Hard Disk backup procedure consists of remote dump/restore performed from the "Instrument FIERA SPARC" on the "Dump Workstation". Therefore the user which performs the remote dump/restore operations

a. must be known³ by the "Dump Workstation",

b. must be allowed to access⁴ the "Dump Workstation" remotely.

The "fcdrun" user is common to all the FIERA SPARCs: therefore the dump/restore operations should be performed as fcdrun.

A standard configuration could therefore be:

· the "Instrument FIERA SPARC" (1.) is mounted on the Telescope,

· the "TCR Workstation" (2.) is in the Telescope Control Room,

· the "Dump Workstation" (3.) resides in the Detector Laboratory in the Telescope Control Building.

3.3 Backup Operations

In the next examples the following setting is used:

"Instrument FIERA SPARC" hostname : insFiera

"Dump Workstation" hostname : dumpFiera

3.3.1 Prepare the backup Hard Disk

If the backup Hard Disk is new, it has to be partitioned.

Use the format UNIX command to perform this operation (see the command manpage calling man -s 1m format).

See the fcdDump manpage (see 7.1.1) for a description of the Hard Disk partition table.

3.3.2 Dump the Instrument FIERA Hard Disk on a DAT tape

On the "Dump Workstation":

1. Insert a DDS-2 (120 m/Native Capacity 4 GB) tape in the DAT drive

On the "TCR Workstation":

2. remote log in the "Instrument FIERA SPARC"

> rlogin insFiera -l fcdrun

3. dump the Hard Disk

> fcdDump -dump dumpFiera

This operation will take around 1-1.5 hour. At the end the DAT tape will contain the contents of the "Instrument FIERA SPARC" Hard Disk.

3.3.3 Dump the DAT tape contents on the spare Hard Disk

On the "Dump Workstation":

1. login as fcdrun

2. halt the host

3. connect the spare Hard Disk to the SCSI bus, checking before that its SCSI ID is set to 3

4. reboot the host

> boot -r

Once the "Dump Workstation" has rebooted:

5. log in the "Dump Workstation" as fcdrun

6. dump the Hard Disk

> fcdDump -restore

This operation will take around 2-2.5 hours. At the end the spare Hard Disk will contain the contents of the DAT tape.

Once the restore operations have been completed, on the "Dump Workstation":

7. Remove the DDS-2 tape from the DAT drive, label and archive it

8. login as fcdrun

9. halt the host

10. disconnect the spare Hard Disk from the SCSI bus

11. if needed, connect a new spare Hard Disk

12. reboot the host

> boot -r

¹

The SCSI Id of an Hard Disk is set by the jumpers on the back of the Hard Disk. These jumpers define the Id with a binary code.

²

network operations must be allowed from the "Instrument FIERA SPARC" to the "Dump Workstation" (check the network connection and permissions, in particular firewall protections)

³

the user must be able to login on the "Dump Workstation" (set the /etc/passwd file on this host appropriately)

⁴

the user must be able to perform remote shell operations (set the user file ~/.rhosts on the "Dump Workstation" appropriately)

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