Restore Procedures

This topic describes the procedures you should use to restore files, accounts or complete databases from tape.

Restoring a Database

• If the database was saved from tlmenu, use the appropriate tlmenu command to reinitialise and restore it. See Restoring the Database from the Most Recent Backup Tape for details.

  You can then bring the database up to date by replaying all changes logged since the last save. See Restoring Clean Logs onto the Database for details.

• If the database was saved with FILE-SAVE or F-S, first reinitialise it with mkdbase -r to ensure that it is internally consistent. Then restore the data by using ACCOUNT-RESTORE with the O option.

  Caution

  The O option to ACCOUNT-RESTORE should be used with extreme caution. Before use, ensure that you fully understand its effect on your database. Use without understanding may result in the corruption and loss of data on the database.

  This may be used as part of the procedure to optimise file layout in the database. See Improving Database Efficiency.

• If the database was saved with SAVE-IMAGE or realdump, use LOAD-IMAGE or realload. These restore the complete database, overwriting any data that might be present.

Restoring Accounts

• To restore individual accounts from a FILE-SAVE or ACCOUNT-SAVE tape, use ACCOUNT-RESTORE.
• To restore accounts from an M-A-S tape, use M-A-R.
• To restore individual accounts from a SAVE-IMAGE or realdump tape, restore the backup onto a new database. You can then use ACCOUNT-SAVE to save the account concerned and then restore to the required database using ACCOUNT-RESTORE.

Restoring Files and Items

• To restore selected files and items from a FILE-SAVE, ACCOUNT-SAVE or M-A-S tape, use SEL-RESTORE.
• To restore individual files from a SAVE-IMAGE or realdump tape, restore the backup onto a new database. You can then use remote accounts and files to access its contents.
• To restore individual items from a T-DUMP or ST-DUMP tape, use T-LOAD.

Restoring Files onto a Foreign Database

It is possible to restore files saved from a Reality database onto a foreign database. Use the FDB-SET command to indicate that subsequent uses of restore commands should restore files onto the specified foreign database.