Netbackup: Creating nonroot backup admins

Creating backup administrators, people responsible for managing system backups, usually involves wrestling with user rights. Do the backup administrators get the root password? If they do, why aren't they admins already? If not, how are they going to backup the system? Netbackup provides a method to circumvent this issue:

1. Create a distinct backup group:

   groupadd -g 20 ${group}
   
   

2. Add the backup admins to the ${group}

   for user in user1 user2 user3
   
   do
   
   	usermod -G ${group} ${user}
   
   done
   
   

3. Change the group on the backup commands:

   cd /usr/openv/netbackup/bin
   
   chgrp ${group} bpadm xbpadm xbpmon initbprd bprd bpdm xnb
   
   chgrp ${group} admincmd/*
   
   

4. Make the programs suid root:

   chmod 4550 bpadm xbpadm xbpmon initbprd bprd bpdm xnb
   
   chmod 4550 admincmd/*