Creating Full Backups

Before you create a database backup, verify the following:

  • You have prepared your backup directory with the vbr init task:

    $ vbr -t init -c full_backup.ini
  • Your database is running. It is unnecessary for all nodes to be up in a K-safe database. However, any nodes that are DOWN are not backed up.
  • All of the backup hosts are up and available.
  • The backup host (either on the database cluster or elsewhere) has sufficient disk space to store the backups.
  • The user account of the user who starts vbr has write access to the target directories on the host backup location. This user can be dbadmin or another assigned role. However, you cannot run vbr as root.
  • Each backup has a unique file name.
  • If you want to keep earlier backups, restorePointLimit is set to a number greater than 1 in the configuration file.
  • If you are backing up an Eon Mode database, you have met the Requirements for Eon Mode Databases.

Run vbr from a terminal. Use the database administrator account from an initiator node in your database cluster. The command requires only the --task backup and --config-file arguments (or their short forms, -t and -c).

If your configuration file does not contain the database administrator password, vbr prompts you to enter the password. It does not display what you type.

vbr requires no further interaction after you invoke it.

The following example shows a full backup:

$ vbr -t backup -c full_backup.ini
Starting backup of database VTDB.
Participating nodes: v_vmart_node0001, v_vmart_node0002, v_vmart_node0003, v_vmart_node0004.
Snapshotting database.
Snapshot complete.
Approximate bytes to copy: 2315056043 of 2356089422 total.
[==================================================] 100%
Copying backup metadata.
Finalizing backup.
Backup complete! 

By default, no output appears, other than the progress bar. To include additional progress information, use the --debug option, with a value of 1, 2, or 3.