Donna brings up a good point in what should be on the SLT tape.  My personal
thought is that the SLT should contain everything required to get the system
up and operational (note: the system not the applications).  The SLT should
contain, at minimum, the SYS account.  I also suggest that you include any
HP or 3rd party utilities that are needed to recover the system (i.e. any
3rd party backup software needed to restore the backup).  If you choose to
include the TELESUP account be sure to exclude any old dumps that might be
out there.

The reason that it is important to store these critical files on the SLT is
because the normal SLT does not contain all of the subsystems and
configurations required to fully recover the system and the network.  This
information is hopefully contained on the system backup, but if you backup
your system with @[log in to unmask]@, then the SYS account is near the end of the backup.
What you need to recover first may be at the end.  Our full backups stores
the SYS account first to avoid this problem but if you keep your backup
tapes offsite then there can be a delay in getting the tapes required to
start your recovery.

If what you need to recover the system is on your custom SLT, then once the
install is complete, rebuild the system volume set and restore @[log in to unmask]@ with
the "DIRECTORY" option off of your SLT, perform a start norecovery and your
system is operational.  When your backup tapes arrive from their offsite
storage you can simply restore @[log in to unmask]@ with the "KEEP", "DIRECTORY" and "ONVS"
options to recover the user data.  For this approach to work your custom SLT
tape must be kept current.  We recommend creating a SLT before and after all
patches and creating an SLT at least every 2 to 4 weeks and keep it where
you can get to it.

This is just a few thoughts on what should be on the SLT for recovery and
why it is important.


=================================
Steve Cole
Outer Banks Solutions, Inc.
[log in to unmask]
www.outerbankssolutions.com
Phone: 919.231.2171  Fax: 919.231.7077
Sales:   800.558.5336
=================================




----- Original Message -----
From: Donna Garverick <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 1999 12:39 PM
Subject: Re: Creating SLT with additions


> Steve Cole wrote:
>
> > Contents of the (STRFILE) follows:
> > @.pub.sys,@[log in to unmask]@.pub.sys;directory;onvs=mpexl_system_volume_set;show
>
> (steve wasn't the only one that replied to the original question, but (i
> believe) all the responses were quite similar....)  is this syntax still
> 'correct'?  certainly it is syntactically, but is it logically correct?
or
> could it be 'more correct' syntactically?  in particular, i'm concerned
that the
> above type of statement would completely by-pass anything in hfs
name-space.  i
> suspect that most of 'us' have hfs files in /SYS/....  personally, i would
give
> some thought to including the telesup account.  hmmm....perhaps the better
> question is *what* really should be on an slt tape -- with recovery in
> mind?            - d
>
> --
> Donna Garverick     Sr. System Programmer
> 925-210-6631        [log in to unmask]
>
> >>>MY opinions, not Longs Drug Stores'<<<