Forum Discussion

dbd's avatar
dbd
Level 2
16 years ago

Cross mount points functionality

Is there a particular reason that in a backup policy, when you enable the Cross mount points option, the backup process still detects if a particluar directory is a mount point?  We have several servers that each have tens of thousands of file systems, each with a mount point.  We need to backup the content in each of the mount points, but when the backup process runs, it first determins if each folder is a mount point.  This process take about 3 seconds for each folder, which doesn't seem necessary given that we don't care if it is a mount point or not.  Can the NetBackup process be optimized such that it doesn't check for a mount point if the cross mount points functionality is enabled?  We are using NetBackup 6.5.3.1 and the clients in question are running Solaris x86 and ZFS.
  • This is easy to do do but in your circumstance it would be more time consuming that you would like I'm sure. 

    The only way around this that I see is to list each mount point explicitly in your backup selections list and then you do not need to check the cross mount points option, and therefore the check would not take place. However with the number of file systems that you have, again, this is most likely will be much more time consuming than you would like.  It will give you your desired behavior though.

    If this answers your question please mark the solution and close the thread.  If you need more information just ask.
  •  I am not sure, but think that Android might be right on this issue. I don't think there is a way of disabling the 3s check you mention. Have you thought of trying Flashbackup as an option insted ? It may be faster, although I am not sure either about it's compatibility with ZFS.
  • dbd...

    I have looked a little further into this and I do not believe outside of what is mentioned above that there is another way around the behavior you want to avoid.  Does the alternative mentioned above work for you?  If it does or if you have found some other method, let us know, then update and close the thread. 
  • Is the mount point check actually occuring at the OS level, or is NetBackup initiating the check internally?  If NetBackup is initiating the check, then this seems to be more of a bug/feature request.  If you allow NetBackup to cross mount points, there should be no reason for it to check if a directory is a mount point or not.  It seems that it woudl be pretty simple to add some logic to NetBackup such that if it is allowed to cross mount points, then it doesn't bother looking. 

    Unfortunately adding each directory to the selections list won't work for us, as each mount point is a user's home direcotry.  We are a university, and given registration cycles, we have a significant turnover in our user base (~15-20% per year).

    If this is not the appropriate venue for a feature request, does anyone know what is?

    Thanks for the replies!
  • of this forum is where you can make feature "suggestions."  However, if you have support with Symantec, if you let them know that what is happening is severely impacting backups in your environment, it may be possible to request it through them.