Backing up NFS mounted filesystems

By default, Data Protector pretends that NFS mounts don't exist. You won't see them when you browse the mounted filesystems of a client machine in the backup specification UI. If you select the whole machine for backup, NFS volumes will be ignored.

The file to control this is /opt/omni/lbin/.util.

• For a Linux box acting as the NFS client, look at line 372. You will see the command-line options being passed to df -P listing the different types of filesystems that Data Protector is interested in. Simply add -t nfs anywhere in this.
• For an HP-UX box, look at line 366. You will see an awk statement matching the output from mount against vxfs, hfs, lofs or hsmfs. Simply add an alternative ^nfs|.
• For other platforms, try to find which pattern match in the case statement around those lines happens to match your operating system.

Be aware that many Unix boxes have an automounter for /net or /nfs so that any user simply changing directory into a subdirectory of them is sufficient for an NFS mount event to happen; and if you had requested a whole machine backup, then Data Protector will back all of them up to.

What would be really nice is to be able to exclude automounted directories, but include NFS mounts. I doesn't look too hard to do, but I haven't had anyone request this. Any takers?

Also, there's a very good chance that any changes you make to /opt/omni/lbin/.util will be over-written on the next patch or upgrade.

Greg Baker is an independent consultant who happens to do a lot of work on HP DataProtector. He is the author of the only published books on HP Data Protector (http://www.ifost.org.au/books/#dp). He works with HP and HP partner companies to solve the hardest big-data problems (especially around backup). See more at IFOST's DataProtector pages at http://www.ifost.org.au/dataprotector