Help! I deleted a directory on AFS! What do I do?

Step 1: Don't Panic!

• AFS is backed up, so you should be OK, and your losses will be minimized.
• Your AFS home directory is backed up nightly, while your AFS work directory seems to be backed up every two or three days.

Step 2: Determine the full path of the missing directory/file

• If the files live on AFS home, this will be something similar to /afs/cern.ch/user/<a>/<account>/<path_to_missing_files>.
• If the files live on your work area, the path will look something like /afs/cern.ch/work/<a>/<account>/<path_to_missing_files>.
• In both of the above, paths, <a> is the first letter of your AFS user name, and <account> is your full AFS user name.

Step 3: Request recovery

• The backups are stored on tape, so you will need to request the backup be found, and copied to a disk where it can be read.
• To do this, use the following command:
  • afs_admin recover <full_afs_path>
• Where <full_afs_path> is the path you came up with in step 2.
• This will ask you what backup you would like to recover (from which date).
  • hint 1: if the data you are trying to recover hasn't changed recently, try to go for a date that has "(f)" next to it ("full backup"), or as close after that date as possible - will speed up the process.
  • hint 2: do not run the command multiple times just because it is "slow" - things will be even slower (since the server behind it will do more operations in parallel)

Step 4: Recover files

• Once decided, your backup will be recovered (this will take a long time). The temporary place where this is accessible will be printed at the end (somewhere under /afs/cern.ch/project/afs/var/ABS/recover/)
• You can now copy your recovered files to AFS where they belong.
• NB: Wait until it is complete. Problems could occur if you kill the process and restart.

Step 5: Unmount

• Your backup will remain mounted until you log out of your current session.
• If you need to request the same backup again (within a reasonable time frame), it will take less time because the directory will be cached.

Bonus info!

• The above steps work if you need to recover a backup that is more than a day old, or anything in your work space.
• If you need to recover files from afs home that are as recent as yesterday, these are already cached.
• You can find these files at: /afs/cern.ch/ubackup/<a>/<account>/<path_to_missing_files>

Something else to try

• This should mount the most recent version of your work area
• fs mkm retrieve work.bjackson.backup
  • eventually unmount this again via fs rmm retrieve (you will eventually forget that this is a backup volume..)

References

• This info was compiled from https://cern.service-now.com/service-portal/article.do?n=KB0000430 and an email conversation with the CERN help desk.
• random edits from other people (JanIven - 2018-09-12)

-- BrettJackson - 11-Oct-2012