VERITAS File System 4.1 Administrator's Guide

Storage Checkpoints
File System Restore From Storage Checkpoints
Chapter 5110
File System Restore From Storage Checkpoints
Mountable data Storage Checkpoints on a consistent and undamaged file system can be used
by backup and restore applications to restore either individual files or an entire file system.
Restoration from Storage Checkpoints can also help recover incorrectly modified files, but
typically cannot recover from hardware damage or other file system integrity problems.
NOTE Note For hardware or other integrity problems, Storage Checkpoints must be
supplemented by backups from other media.
Files can be restored by copying the entire file from a mounted Storage Checkpoint back to the
primary fileset. To restore an entire file system, you can designate a mountable data Storage
Checkpoint as the primary fileset using the fsckpt_restore command (see the
fsckpt_restore(1M) manual page). When using the fsckpt_restore command to restore a
file system from a Storage Checkpoint, all changes made to that file system after that Storage
Checkpoint’s creation date are permanently lost. The only Storage Checkpoints and data
preserved are those that were created at the same time, or before, the selected Storage
Checkpoint’s creation. The file system cannot be mounted when fsckpt_restore is invoked.
NOTE Note Files can be restored very efficiently by applications using the
fsckpt_fbmap(3) library function to restore only modified portions of a files
data.
Example of Restoring a File From a Storage Checkpoint
The following example restores a file, MyFile.txt, which resides in your home directory, from
the Storage Checkpoint "CKPT1" to the device /dev/vx/dsk/vol-01.The mount point for the
device is /home.
1. Create the Storage Checkpoint CKPT1 of /home.
$ fckptadm create CKPT1 /home
2. Mount Storage Checkpoint CKPT1 on the directory /home/checkpoints/mar_4.
$ mount -F vxfs -o ckpt=CKPT1 /dev/vx/dsk/vol-01:CKPT1 \
/home/checkpoints/mar_4