Restoring file systems or custom applications

You can use the fcmcli -f restore command to restore a file system or custom application that you backed up.

The following examples illustrate the processes that are involved in restoring file systems and custom applications.

Prerequisite

Confirm with IBM FlashSystem storage administrator that the host location refers to the backup site.

Execute the lshost command.
Figure 1. Confirming site location
The output indicates that the host location (location_system) refers to the backup site.
If the location of the host is different than the backup site, issue the following commands from any site:
```
# chhost -location <site-2-name> <hostname>
```
Refer IBM FlashSystem documentation for more details.
If you want to restore the snapshot backup from site2, issue the following command from any site, before restore operation:
```
# chhost -location <site-2-name> <hostname>
```
Note: Only supported on the AIX platform.

Before you begin a restore operation, query IBM® Storage Protect Snapshot for all of the snapshot backups that are taken, use the fcmcli -f inquire command. To restore a file system or custom application, complete the following steps:

Specify what data you want to query. Use one of the following methods:
- Specify #NULL to query IBM Storage Protect Snapshot for a list of all backups.
- Specify a backup ID to query the details of a particular snapshot backup.
- Use the fcmcli -f inquire_detail function to query extra information about the backup. For example, the type of snapshot or the background copy progress.
After you run the query, use the fcmcli -f restore command to perform a full or partial snapshot restore of the data that was backed up.
- To perform a full snapshot restore, provide IBM Storage Protect Snapshot with a backup ID from the query that you ran. If you want to restore the latest backup, you can specify #NULL.
- To restore only a portion of the data, specify a list of files explicitly by using the -I <infile> option, where the infile file contains a list of files or directories that you want to restore. Although IBM Storage Protect Snapshot performs restores at a volume level, extra data might be restored as part of the volume restore operation. You can use the NEGATIVE_LIST parameter to specify what actions IBM Storage Protect Snapshot takes in these situations.

You can use the backup-archive client to query and restore data from the IBM Storage Protect server. Although IBM Storage Protect Snapshot assists in creating an IBM Storage Protect backup from a snapshot, IBM Storage Protect Snapshot cannot be used for the restore operation. You can use the following options to facilitate the restore:

MODE FULL or MODE DIFF: You can correlate an IBM Storage Protect backup with the corresponding FlashCopy® backup. Compare the IBM Storage Protect Snapshot backup ID with the name of the file list that is backed up as part of the IBM Storage Protect backup.
MODE ARCHIVE: You can correlate an IBM Storage Protect backup with the corresponding FlashCopy backup. Compare the IBM Storage Protect Snapshot backup ID with the name of the archive description of the IBM Storage Protect backup.