This chapter contains information on the tasks and tools that allow you to manipulate the filesystems and back up and restore files on your workstation. It contains the following sections:
Your system comes standard with a system disk that contains the IRIX operating system and hundreds of megabytes of unused disk space. As you add new user login accounts, the system creates new directories on this disk for each person. And as you add new application software, the Software Manager creates the appropriate files and directories to support it. The files and directories contained on the disk are referred to collectively as a filesystem. Over time, you may find that your filesystem will begin to approach the capacity of your disk.
This chapter gives you some possible ways to address this situation by showing you how to manage your local disk drives, filesystems, and removable media devices.
Click on one of the links below for more information on that topic:
When you mount a local filesystem, you give yourself access to the space available in that filesystem. A hard disk can contain one or more filesystems. In a one disk configuration, there is usually a single filesystem (called the root or / filesystem), although sometimes disks have more. (A common configuration is to have a second filesystem for the information in the /usr area.)
Typically, separate disks running on the same system have separate filesystems. This is done to make it easier to do things like replace a disk or make that disk available for remote mounting by another system on the network. For example, some companies may have all the user accounts stored on a /usr filesystem on a central system, and every user mounts that filesystem on their local machine.
For further information, see “Managing Local File Systems”, the mount(1M) reference (man) page, and the “Mount a Local Filesystem” guide in the System Manager.
When you unmount a local filesystem, you no longer have access to the space and information available in that filesystem. A hard disk can contain one or more filesystems. In a one disk configuration, there is usually a single filesystem (called the root or / filesystem), although sometimes disks have more. (A common configuration is to have a second filesystem for the information in the /usr area.)
Typically, separate disks running on the same system have separate filesystems. This is done to make it easier to do things like replace a disk or make that disk available for remote mounting by another system on the network. For example, some companies may have all the user accounts stored on a /usr filesystem on a central system, and every user mounts that filesystem on their local machine.
For further information, see “Managing Local File Systems”, the mount(1M) reference (man) page, and the “Unmount a Filesystem” guide in the System Manager.
The Filesystem Manager displays a list of the existing filesystems on your system, the local directories where you can access them (mount points), and the current amount of space that's still available for use. When you first start the Filesystem Manager, it checks the disk space and gives you up-to-the-second information. If you keep the Filesystem Manager window open, the system updates these numbers continuously.
If the Filesystem Manager is not running, start it by choosing “Filesystem Manager” from the System toolchest. You can also access it from within the System Manager. (Open the System Manager, select the Files and Data category, and then click “Filesystem Manager.”)
By default, the system warns you when your filesystem is 95% full. The “Set Filesystem Space Monitoring” guide lets you change this threshold for a particular filesystem or for all filesystems on your system. It also allows you to customize the way in which your system notifies you when a filesystem is running low on space.
To open the guide, choose “Set Space Monitoring” from the Task menu in the Filesystem Manager window. The “Set Filesystem Space Monitoring” guide appears and leads you through the necessary steps.
To increase the amount of available disk space, see “Freeing Disk Space”. If you have a second disk and you would like to free space on your system disk, see “Taking Advantage of a Second Disk”.
You can regain used disk space in several ways:
Empty your dumpster by choosing “Empty Dumpster” from the Desktop toolchest.
Remove or archive old or large files or directories.
To find old or large files, choose Search for Files in the Find toolchest to start the Search tool, then use its online help.
It's a good idea to search for files named core; these are often very large, and are created by an application when it encounters a problem.
If you move icons to the dumpster, empty your dumpster again.
To archive (back up) files, use the “Back Up Files” guide. You can access it in the Files and Data category in the System Manager.
If your system disk is almost full, check the following:
/var/tmp and /tmp: These public directories often become full; delete unwanted files or directories that you find here.
/var/adm/SYSLOG: If this file seems very large (over 200 KB), remove all but the last few lines of it; do not remove the entire file. In a shell window, type the following:
tail /var/adm/SYSLOG > /var/adm/SYSLOG.tmp mv /var/adm/SYSLOG.tmp /var/adm/SYSLOG
This will give you a SYSLOG file that contains only the last 10 lines of what it contained before.
/var/adm/crash: When the system has a serious failure, it places information into two files: vmcore.<number> and unix.<number>. If you find files with these names, back them up so you can give the files to your local support organization, then remove the files from your system.
If you move icons to the dumpster, empty your dumpster again.
mbox in all home directories: If these files are large, ask the owners to delete all but critical mail messages. (Use the du command to determine how much space the files are taking up.)
Use the Software Manager to remove optional or application software; see “Removing a Product” in Chapter 2.
Over time, your disk may not be large enough to hold the operating system, the software applications, and the personal data created by all the people who use the system. In this case, it's a good idea to add a second disk drive (see “Setting Up a New Hard Disk” in Chapter 3).
When you add a second disk (with, for example, the name /disk2), you create a new, empty filesystem that has the same storage capacity as the new disk. If you added a 500 MB disk, you can store 500 MB of information in /disk2. Adding this disk, however, does not automatically increase the capacity of the system disk. Unless you explicitly store some personal data files or some applications in /disk2, you will continue to run out of disk space.
This section offers two options for effectively using a second disk:
Typical users store most data files in their home directory, so you can usually free substantial space on your system disk by moving home directories to your second disk. To do this, you must first move the home directory, then change the name of the home directory to match the new pathname of the directory.
The example below moves user joe's home directory from /usr/people/joe to the second disk, /disk2. To find out where the second disk is actually mounted on your system, open the Filesystem Manager (available in the Files and Data category in the System Manager). In the Filesystem Manager window, select the disk and click the Get Info button. A Filesystem Panel appears and displays the mount point for the disk; this is the directory where you can access the files located on the disk.
 | Caution: The steps below move all files and preserve permissions, but please proceed carefully. Skipping a step or mistyping a command can cause you to lose data. If you are unfamiliar with UNIX commands, you may want to contact an experienced UNIX administrator for help. |
If you want to move home directories, use the “Modify a User Account” guide. See “Modify a User Account” in Chapter 4 for more details.
Make sure the user(s) whose home directory you are going to move is not logged in.
Log out, and log in to the system as root.
Use the “Back Up Files” guide to back up all home directories that you plan to move.
Open a shell window by choosing “Open Unix Shell” from the Desktop toolchest.
Move into the /usr/people directory and then create a copy of the files on /disk2 by entering:
cd /usr/people
tar cBf - joe | (cd /disk2; tar xBf -)
The copy may take several minutes depending on how much data the directory contains. The copy is complete when you see the system prompt (#). The full pathname of the new directory is /disk2/joe.
Make sure the copy worked.
Double-click the /disk2 directory icon on the desktop, and make sure the joe directory is there.
Double-click the joe directory and make sure it is not empty.
Select a file or directory in the joe directory and choose “Change Permissions” from the Selected toolchest.
Set “joe” as the owner of the file by choosing “joe” from the User Name option menu in the Change Permissions window. See “Permissions Manager” in Chapter 4 for more information.
Open several more directories to verify that the directory structure is intact.
When you have determined that the copy was successful, go on to the next step.
Make a copy of the old directory and create a link from the old directory to the new (this ensures that remote access via NFS continues to work). In the shell window, enter
cd /usr/people
mv joe joe.sav
ln -s ../../disk2/joe .
Be sure to include the period (.) at the end of the last command.
Open the “Modify a User Account” guide.
Choose “System Manager” from the System toolchest, select the Security and Access Control category, and then click “Modify a User Account.”
In Step 2 of the guide, choose joe from the menu of user accounts (click the button at the right of the field).
Use the Next button to go to Step 9 and type the new pathname in the Home directory field, for example, /disk2/joe, then use the Next button to go to the end of the guide.
Click the OK button in the last step of the guide to record your changes.
Note: Be sure to do this for every user whose home directory you moved. Verify the following:
You can log in to the joe account.
The joe directory contains files.
Go to the joe directory and remove the old directory that you saved. In a shell window, enter
rm -rf joe.sav
The next time the user logs in, the user will find all of their existing files and directories available in their home directory.
Many applications have accompanying support files or data libraries that can take up many megabytes of disk space. If an application has a particularly large directory of these types of files, you may want to move that directory to the second disk.
The application knows the full pathname of its supporting directories, so you cannot simply move the directories onto the second disk. You need to first move the directory, then make a linked copy of the directory and give that linked copy the full pathname that the application recognizes.
A good example of such an application is IRIS InSight, the online document library viewer. All of the books that IRIS InSight accesses reside in the /usr/share/Insight directory. If you have many books installed, you may have up to 100 MB of data stored in this directory. The example below shows you how to move this directory onto your second disk.
| Caution: The steps below move all files and preserve permissions, but please proceed carefully. Skipping a step or mistyping a command can cause you to lose data. If you are unfamiliar with UNIX commands, you may want to contact an experienced UNIX administrator for help. |
Only the Administrator can move the support directories onto a second disk. For example, to move the IRIS InSight support directories onto /disk2, follow these steps:
Log out, and log in to the system as root.
Open a shell window by choosing “Open Unix Shell” from the Desktop toolchest.
Move into the /usr/share directory and create a copy of the files on /disk2 by entering
cd /usr/share
tar cBf - Insight | (cd /disk2; tar xBf -)
The copy may take several minutes depending on how much data the directory contains. The copy is complete when you see the system prompt (#). The full pathname of the new directory is /disk2/Insight.
Make sure the copy worked.
Double-click the /disk2 directory, and make sure the Insight directory is there.
Double-click the Insight directory and make sure it is not empty.
Open several more directories to verify that the directory structure is intact.
When you're comfortable that the copy was successful, go on to the next step.
Make a copy of the old directory and create a link from the old directory to the new (this ensures that remote access via NFS continues to work). In the shell window, enter
cd /usr/share
mv Insight Insight.old
ln -s ../../disk2/Insight .
Be sure to include the period (.) at the end of the last command.
The full pathname of the linked copy is now /usr/share/Insight, which is the original name of the directory that you moved to your second disk. The application finds the linked copy in the appropriate location, and can access all its support files.
Verify that the link you created works and then remove the old directory that you saved by entering
rm -rf Insight.old
in a shell window.
For alternate ways to access IRIS InSight books, see “Accessing an IRIS InSight Document Server” in Chapter 5 and “Using a CD as a Read-Only IRIS InSight Document Library” in Chapter 3.
You can also use the Software Manager to move some applications. See “Software Manager” in Chapter 2 for further details.
The Software Manager provides tools to back up and restore data on your system. Click on one of the links below for more information:
You can backup and restore files with a variety of tools and procedures, and on a variety of media. If you want more in-depth knowledge of what's available to you, click on one of the topics below:
The first step toward ensuring the safety of your system's information is to develop a backup strategy. You should plan on performing incremental backups each day and backing up the entire system at least once a week. See your network administrator to coordinate your backup strategy with the overall scheme of network backups.
| Note: Always make a new backup of the entire system after you work on user accounts, add devices, or install new software. Only a full system backup can completely restore your system in the event of a serious system software failure. If a system failure occurs, customized system information will be lost. |
Make sure all users agree to and are aware of the set time for the weekly backup. Try to schedule it for a time when the system is not usually being used, such as early on Monday morning or late Friday afternoon.
Always use at least two sets of backup tapes between which you alternate the weekly backup. When you start a backup, the system copies this new information over the old, which effectively deletes the old information. If you use last week's backup tape to perform this week's backup, you run the risk of losing the previous week's backups.
Finally, the tape drive is an option on the system. If you do not have a tape drive, you can back up your system using the tape drive of another system that is part of your network.
Silicon Graphics supports a number of different 8mm and DLT drives, including the 8505XL and 2000XL drives, as well as several of the more high-end tape drives.
Third-party drives are not directly supported.
When you purchase additional tapes, be sure to specify the type of drive you have. To check which type you have, open the Removable Media Manager (available in the Hardware and Devices category in the System Manager). See “Removable Media Manager Reference” in Chapter 3 for more information.
You also insert and lock tapes into the drive differently depending on the type of drive. See the installation guide included with the drive or your system owner's guide for this information.
| Note: Silicon Graphics no longer ships QIC drives but it does still provide support for them. |
IRIX provides several tools for backing up and restoring files. This section describes each tool and shows you how to use tar, one of the most widely used tools.
| Caution: If you want to do a full system backup, make sure you use the Backup and Restore Manager; it ensures that all special system files are backed up. |
The tools described in this section come standard on every system.
| bru | bru (backup/restore utility) can back up and restore an entire filesystem or individual directories and files. It can compress and decompress files, find and back up files based on modification date, check space requirements, and verify whether a backup was successful. See the bru(1) reference (man) page for more information. | |
| tar | tar (tape archiver) backs up specific files and directories. You can copy files to tape, create tar files, compare files on tape to files on disk, read standard input, and pipe the output of tar to other processes. See also “About tar”. See the tar(1) reference (man) page for more information. | |
| cpio | Like tar, cpio (copy in/out) archives files and directories. With cpio you can copy files to tapes or disks, archive empty directories, swap byte order, create portable ASCII archives, and read from and write to standard output. See the cpio(1) reference (man) page for more information. | |
| dump/restore | dump and restore are standard filesystem backup and restore utilities available on most UNIX systems. dump makes incremental backups of entire filesystems; restore retrieves files from archives created by dump. restore can restore an entire filesystem or individual files and lets you browse the contents of an archive and select specific files for restoration. For more information, see the reference (man) pages for dump(1M) and restore(1M). |
tar is a very portable, general-purpose backup and restore tool. Most systems that run the UNIX operating system support tar. This section gives you a brief introduction to using the basic features of tar. For more information, see the tar(1) reference (man) page for tar.
Only the owner of a directory or file can back it up with tar. You must be logged in as root if you're backing up files that belong to multiple users.
To copy files to a tape in a local or remote drive, follow these steps:
Open a shell window by choosing “Open Unix Shell” from the Desktop toolchest.
To back up files that are owned by several different users, log in as root by typing:
login root
Then press Enter.
If a prompt for a password appears, type the password, then press Enter. If a prompt appears but the root account has no password, just press Enter.
Make sure that a tape is in the tape drive. (See “About Tape Formats and Capacities” to make sure you have the correct type of tape for your drive.)
Run the tar command.
The command has this format:
tar options device pathname
options are letters that describe how you want to use tar; for example, c specifies copy to tape, and v (for “verbose”) specifies that tar should list the files while copying them. device is the name and location of the tape drive; you do not need to specify the device when you're copying to the default local drive. pathname is the full pathname of a file or directory.
To copy the /usr/charts directory to a tape in a local drive and to view the contents of the directory while it's being copied, type
tar cv /usr/charts
Then press Enter. tar replaces any information on the tape with the contents of the /usr/charts directory.
To copy the same directory to a tape in a remote drive, add the f option before the tape device name (the device name consists of a login name, remote hostname, and device file, which is usually /dev/tape). To copy /usr/charts to the tape drive connected to the system mars through the guest account, type
tar cvf guest@mars:/dev/tape /usr/charts
Then press Enter.
Note: This example uses the guest account because it usually does not have an associated password. If yours is a very secure environment, this account may have a password. If so, work with the Administrator of the remote system or the network administrator to set up an account through which you can access the drive. While tar copies the directory, you see a listing similar to this:
a /usr/charts/north 83 blocks a /usr/charts/south 102 blocks a /usr/charts/east 124 blocks a /usr/charts/west 86 blocks
To stop the copy, press Ctrl-C. The copy is complete when you see the system prompt.
To view the contents of a tape created with tar, follow these steps:
Open a shell window by choosing “Open Unix Shell” from the Desktop toolchest.
Insert the tape in the drive.
Position your cursor in the shell window and issue the tar command.
To list the contents of a tape in a local drive, type:
tar tv
Then press Enter.
To list the contents of a tape in a remote drive; for example, for the drive connected to the system mars, type
tar tvf guest@mars:/dev/tape
Then press Enter.
rwxr-xr-x dir Feb 11 08:41 1992 /usr/charts rwxr-xr-x 42004 Feb 11 08:41 1992 /usr/charts/north rwxr-xr-x 51869 Feb 11 08:41 1992 /usr/charts/south rwxr-xr-x 63217 Feb 11 08:41 1992 /usr/charts/east rwxr-xr-x 43554 Feb 11 08:41 1992 /usr/charts/west
To stop the listing, press Ctrl-C. The listing is complete when you see the system prompt.
To copy files onto your disk that you previously archived to tape using tar, follow these steps:
Open a shell window by choosing “Open Unix Shell” from the Desktop toolchest.
To restore files that are owned by several different users, log in as root by typing
login root
Then press Enter.
If a prompt for a password appears, type the password, then press Enter. If a prompt appears but the root account has no password, just press Enter.
Compare the contents of the directory to which you want to restore the files with the contents of the tape.
Caution: If files on the tape have the same name as files in the directory to which you are restoring files, the files on your hard disk will be replaced by the files on the tape. View the contents of the directory (for example, /usr/charts) by typing
ls -al /usr/charts
Then press Enter.
View the contents of the tape using the appropriate command from “ Viewing the Contents of a Tape Using tar”.
Look for files in the directory that have the same names as files on the tape. If you do not want the files on the tape to replace those of the same name on your hard disk, you may want to rename or move the files on the hard disk.
Position your cursor in the shell window and issue the tar command with the x (for “extract”) option.
To restore the entire contents of a tape in a local drive to its original location on your hard disk, type
tar xv
Then press Enter.
To restore a specific file or directory (for example, /usr/charts/north) from a tape in a local drive to its original location on your hard disk, type
tar xv /usr/charts/north
Then press Enter.
To restore a specific file or directory (for example, /usr/charts/north) from a tape in a local drive to a different location on your hard disk (for example, /usr/tmp), type
cd /usr/tmp;tar xvR /usr/charts/north
Then press Enter. The name of this file is now /usr/tmp/usr/charts/north.
To restore the entire contents of a tape in a remote drive (for example, the drive connected to the system mars) to its original location on your hard disk, type
tar xvf guest@mars:/dev/tape
Then press Enter.
To restore a specific file or directory (for example, /usr/charts/north) to its original location on your hard disk, type
tar xv guest@mars:/dev/tape /usr/charts/north
Then press Enter.
To restore a specific file or directory (for example, /usr/charts/north) from a tape in a remote drive to a different location on your hard disk (for example, /usr/tmp), type
cd /usr/tmp;tar xvR guest@mars:/dev/tape /usr/charts/north
Then press Enter. The name of this file is now /usr/tmp/usr/charts/north.
While tar restores the file(s), you see a listing similar to this:
x /usr/charts/north, 42004 bytes, 83 blocks x /usr/charts/south, 51869 bytes, 102 blocks x /usr/charts/east, 63217 bytes, 124 blocks x /usr/charts/west, 43554 bytes, 86 blocks
The restoration is complete when you see the system prompt.
To stop the restoration, press Ctrl-C. For more information on the tar command and its options, see the tar(1) reference (man) page for tar.
The Backup and Restore Manager provides access to several guides that you use in combination to back up and restore the entire contents of a disk or selected directories and files and onto a tape or disk, or to perform a full system backup. The tape can be located in either a local tape drive (one that is physically connected to your system) or a remote tape drive (one that is physically connected to another system on the network). The Backup and Restore Manager also displays information about the scheduled backups that you create, including the name of the backup, the location where the backed up files will be stored, the user who created the backup, and when and how often the backup will be performed.
To open the Backup and Restore Manager, select the Files and Data category in the System Manager and then click “Backup and Restore Manager.” (To open the System Manager, choose System Manager from the System toolchest or click the words “System Manager.”)
You can use the Get Info button in the Backup and Restore Manager window to display detailed information about a specific scheduled backup. Select the name of the backup in the window and click Get Info. A Scheduled Backup Info window appears and displays the file(s) that are included in the backup, as well as other information about the backup.
For further information on the Backup and Restore Manager, see “Backup and Restore Manager Reference”, which contains details on the Serial Device Manager graphical interface.
The Task menu contains these choices:
“Schedule Backup” opens the “Back Up Files” guide, which lets you perform a backup (after completing the guide) or schedule a backup for a later date. The guide lets you choose between performing a full system backup or selecting specific files or directories to back up. This command is equivalent to the Backup button. See “Back Up Files” for more information.
“Restore Files” opens the “Restore Files From Backup” guide, which lets you restore files to your system from a previous backup. This command is equivalent to the Restore button. See “Restore Files From Backup” for more information.
“Unschedule Backup” opens the “Unschedule a Backup” guide, which gives you the opportunity to cancel a previously scheduled backup. This command is equivalent to the Unschedule button. See “Unschedule a Backup” for more information.
“System Manager” opens the System Manager window, which gives you access to all of the system administration interactive guides.
“Close” closes the Backup and Restore Manager window. Any changes you made using the guides are saved. This command is equivalent to the Close button.
The Help menu contains a list of help topics. To view a topic, choose it from this menu.
| Note: As an alternative to the backup and restore guides, you may want to use a IRIX utility called bru. For more information on bru, see “Using Other Tools to Back Up and Restore Files”. |
You use the “Back Up Files” guide to back up files on your system. You can access the guide in one of these ways:
In the System Manager, select the Files and Data category, and click “Back Up Files.”
In the System Manager, select the Files and Data category, click “Backup and Restore Manager,” and then click the Backup button.
Before using the “Back Up Files” guide, you should consider the following issues:
Do you want to perform a full system backup or selected backup?
A full system backup requires the root password. For this reason, the Administrator typically performs full system backups to back up all the files on the system.
Note: A full system backup does not backup NFS-mounted directories and files. You do not need to know the root password to back up selected files and directories that you own. If you try to back up files that you do not have permission to view (read), the system won't back up those files.
Do you want to perform the backup now, later, or on a recurring basis?
“Now” means that the system will begin backing up files when you click the OK button on the last page of the guide.
“Later” means that the system will perform the backup at the time and date (in the future) that you specify. You specify the date of the backup by selecting a date some number of days in the future. For example, if the current date is July 25 and you want the backup to occur on July 30, then you would enter “5” in the field labeled “Days from today.”
“Recurring” means that the system will regularly perform the backup on a daily or weekly basis. For example, you can set the backup to occur every Friday at 5:00 pm. Or, you can set the backup to occur every day at midnight.
Where do you want to store the backed up files?
If you want to store the files on a tape, make sure that you have a tape drive connected to your system or that you have access to a remote tape drive connected to another system on the network.
Note: If an existing Ethernet network is available, follow the instructions in “Setting Up Network Connections” to put your system on a network where you can access a remote tape drive. If there is no network available, contact the system's manufacturer to order a tape drive for your system. To store the files on a disk, make sure you have enough disk space available. (You can use the Filesystem Manager to view available disk space.) You need to specify the full path name of the file in which you want to store the backed up files. For example, /usr/people/benjamin/backup.7.25.
If you accidentally remove a file or directory, or something goes wrong with the system, you can restore your files and information from a backup tape or a backup file. (You can also restore an old version of a file.) If you're backing up from a tape, make sure you have the most recent backup tape when you restore files. If you're backing up from a file, make sure you know the name and location of the file on your system.
If you do not have a local tape drive, you can restore files using a tape drive connected to a remote system on the network. If possible, use the same remote tape drive to back up and restore information. That way you'll be sure the drive can read your backup tape. (For more information on tape formats, see “About Tape Formats and Capacities”.)
Users can restore files that they own, but only the Administrator can restore an entire system.
| Caution: If you restore files to a directory in which files of the same name exist, the files on the hard disk will be replaced with the files from the tape. |
| Note: In the event of a serious system failure, you may need to restore the entire operating system. See your owner's guide or IRIX Admin: Backup, Security, and Accounting . |
To restore a file or filesystem, open the “Restore Files From Backup” guide, available in the Files and Data category in the System Manager. A guide appears and leads you through the necessary steps.
After you finish restoring your files from tape, remove your tape from the drive and store it in a safe place.
You may decide at some point that you don't want the system to perform a backup that you previously scheduled. To remove a backup from the list of scheduled backups, open the “Unschedule a Backup” guide, available in the Files and Data category in the System Manager. A guide appears and leads you through the necessary steps.
Once you unschedule a backup, it no longer appears in the Backup and Restore Manager. If you want to back up the same files again, you need to use the “Back Up Files” guide to create and schedule another backup.
| Note: If the backup you want to unschedule was created by the Administrator, you must have the necessary privileges or know the root password in order to unschedule it. For information about privileges, see “Enable Use of Granted Privileges” in Chapter 4. |