Let work today on a simple example on backup/Restore process from a Vob on a Unix/Linux Environment.
I - Backup

1) Preparing to backup

   Be sure your vob is umounted and unlocked.

   # cleartool umount /vobs/2013-01

   # cleartool lock vob:/vobs/2013-01
Locked versioned object base "/vobs/2013-01".

2) Doing the backup

2.1) Let's create a list from with  the existing files.

  find /vobstore/2013-01.vbs/ > /tmp/list-from-production

2.2) Create a list of files and permissions at <vbs>/.identity/

ls -lhta /vobstore/2013-01.vbs/.identity/
total 8.0K
drwxr-xr-x 8 pmoura pmoura 4.0K Mar 10 00:30 ..
drwx------ 2 pmoura pmoura 4.0K Jan 21 13:56 .
-r----s--- 1 pmoura pmoura    0 Jan 21 13:56 gid
-r-S------ 1 pmoura pmoura    0 Jan 21 13:56 uid


2.3) Then let create the backup.

tar czvf /tmp/2013-01.vob.tar.gz /vobstore/2013-01.vbs

3) Testing if I'm able to restore the backup to an alternative place:

mkdir /tmp/testing-backup

tar xzf /tmp/2013-01.vob.tar.gz -C /tmp/testing-backup

Create a list witht the files

find /tmp/testing-backup/ > /tmp/listfrombackup

Since my alternative place have two more levels the the original vob store, i.e:

/tmp/testing-backup/vobstore/2013-01.vbs/

instead

/vobstore/2013-01.vbs/

I will create a new file list (from backup) without /tmp/testing-backup/ and the 2 first lines (that will show /tmp and testing),
just to facilitate the comparison:


sed -e 's/\/tmp\/testing-backup//' -e 1,2d  /tmp/listfrombackup > /tmp/listfrombackup-same-path

Then I ran:

 diff /tmp/list-from-production /tmp/listfrombackup-same-path  
1c1
< /vobstore/2013-01.vbs/
---
> /vobstore/2013-01.vbs

We can disregard the so few differences above and and assume the all files were restore, so our backup seems to be good.

After I have realized my backup is good, I should make a copy from the backup file to other machine (for security purpose), and then I delete  the original vbs:

rm -rf  /vobstore/2013-01.vbs
 

Note: If I tried to mount the vob now I'll have failure:

# cleartool mount /vobs/2013-01
cleartool: Error: The VOB storage directory "/vobstore/2013-01.vbs" was not found.


II - Restoring process

1) Restoring the vbs using the backup file.

1.1)
# tar xzf /tmp/2013-01.vob.tar.gz -C /

Double check if the permissions on <vbs>/.identity still the same (collected from I - 2.2 above):

ls -lhta /vobstore/2013-01.vbs/.identity/
total 8.0K
drwxr-xr-x 8 pmoura pmoura 4.0K Mar 10 00:30 ..
drwx------ 2 pmoura pmoura 4.0K Jan 21 13:56 .
-r----s--- 1 pmoura pmoura    0 Jan 21 13:56 gid
-r-S------ 1 pmoura pmoura    0 Jan 21 13:56 uid

2) Describing the vob, and not it still locked:

# cleartool desc vob:/vobs/2013-01
versioned object base "/vobs/2013-01" (locked)
  created 2013-01-21T13:56:08-05:00 by pmoura.pmoura@abcMachine
  VOB family feature level: 5
  VOB storage host:pathname "abcMachine:/vobstore/2013-01.vbs"
  VOB storage global pathname "/vobstore/2013-01.vbs"
  database schema version: 54
  modification by remote privileged user: allowed
  atomic checkin: disabled
  VOB ownership:
    owner pmoura
    group pmoura
  Attributes:
    FeatureLevel = 5

3) Unlocking the vob

# cleartool unlock vob:/vobs/2013-01
Unlocked versioned object base "/vobs/2013-01".

4) Testing the vob

# cleartool mount /vobs/2013-01

# su - pmoura
$ cleartool pmoura_view
$ cleartool setview pmoura_view2

$ cd /vobs/2013-01/
  $ ls
lost+found  repro  testblabla.txt

  $ cleartool co -nc .
Checked out "." from version "/main/3".
  $ cleartool mkdir test
Creation comments for "test":
.
Created directory element "test".
Checked out "test" from version "/main/0".

  $ cleartool ci -nc test .
Checked in "test" version "/main/1".
Checked in "." version "/main/4".

Then we can conclude our backup was suscefull and we can delete the vbs copy restored on the alternative place

III - Conclusion

Vob Backup is not a matter of copy vbs, but we need to be sure:

There is no process running on this Vob.

The backup must be tested.