Hi all, We have NetBackup 6.5.4 Enterprise on a SPARC/Solaris 10 server here. Personally I use the Java client (jnbSA) to admin the server from my Linux workstation but some of our guys use the native Windows admin gui (i.e. not Java gui) from their PCs to do the same. This all worked fine until last monday. I had to rearrange the network interfaces on the server in advance of creating some trunked ports for extra bandwidth to the server so I moved the main NIC for the machine (i.e. the one that the backup and admin clients talk to it on) to a different physical port - in Solaris terms I renamed the "/etc/hostname.ce0" file to "/etc/hostname.ce2" and rebooted the machine. Prior to that the ce2 interface had been used for something else but that was moved to ce0 so in effect, I've swapped the two interfaces around (and obviously the cables too). Now, the windows admin gui runs very slow at certain things, in particular accessing the media on the server - the windows guys use this for doing daily tape ejects and imports, the windows gui sits there for ages saying "Opening EMM database". It does eventually get there after a couple of minutes or so. The Java gui that I use still works fine, however. Any ideas? Thanks in advance, Niall

Open java console on the same machine. Find logs of java console. It will show you info about ip addresses that can't be resolved. My customers had the same issue and I've found that it was a problem with ip addresses configured on Master Server but not defined in dns. Windows console hanged for few minutes but java worked fine. Java console showed error with resolving of ip address but there was no timeout.

As the windows console is so easy to remove and install I would do just that. un-install from the PC and reinstall -- it may have something to do with something in it having issues finding the server again. I had the same issue once, and I just un-installed it and reinstalled - worked OK for me then.

OK I tried removing and reinstalling the Windows client on the affected machine but still no joy - the native Windows admin console app still takes several minutes saying "Opening EMM database" before allowing media-related functions and sometimes when doing ejects, times out saying eject aborted due to errors. Looking at policies seems to take a long time to get started too. The Java-based client I use on my workstation is still fine, however, and backup performance is still good. Is there a known issue using Sun Trunking with NetBackup?

I hate to do this but - BUMP - this is still a big issue for us. The Windows NBU admin console (i.e. native Windows one, not Java version) is *very* slow doing media-related operations. In particular, when clicking on "Media" in the tree view on the left the hourglass appears with the message "Opening EMM database" and this stays there for a long time (approx 5 minutes). Doing tape ejects takes a very long time also and sometimes fails with no real explanation. Can anyone please give me some idea as to how to go about troubleshooting this, or where to look?

that have been removed from your environment or switched off that are still referenced by NetBackup? Check in ALL listings that you can find for references to the above e.g. Master Server properties(inc firewall & servers tab), Media servers etc etc etc. Name resolution issues for media servers? IP lookup could be slowing things? May seem obvious, but a lot of the slow down you experience could 'simply' be NB looking for resources it can't find (i.e. other hosts). Couple of T/N's, but these mainly focussing on "missing" media servers: DOCUMENTATION: The NetBackup Windows Administration console is very slow when attempting to view the activity monitor. The NetBackup Administration Console responds very slowly if server names from the Enterprise Media Manager database cannot be resolved to an IP address. What made you query Sun Trunking? Is this set up correctly? Is there some n/w or resolution issue here maybe? PS: don't worry about bumping! ***EDIT*** One day, just one day I'm going to read things thru'!! If the slow down happened after your n/w changes then I would have to point the finger there. We implemented Sun Trunking many moons ago with no issues.

Hey, thanks for the quick response. We haven't removed any media servers, the only media services are run on the same machine as the master. Running "nbemmcmd -listhosts" on the master server showed an old NDMP host that doesn't exist any more so I took that out with nbemmcmd -deletehost, but that hasn't helped. I tried nbemmcmd.exe -listhosts on the Windows machine running the admin console and got the following error: NBEMMCMD, Version:6.5.4 Failed to initialize EMM connection. Verify that network access to the EMM serv er is available and that the services nbemm and pbx_exchange are running on the EMM server. (195) Command did not complete successfully. Did check those processes and both are running normally. I also noticed that it does take a while to open the Activity Monitor (about 20-30 seconds) on the Windows admin console, again this displays the "Opening EMM database" message during the waiting time. Additionally, when I attempt to look inside the "Media" branch of the left tree view under "Media and Device Management" the NBConsole.exe process maxes out the CPU on the machine. Even after five minutes or so and the media is being displayed in the main panel on the right, that process continues to consume all available CPU. CPU usage only returns to normal on closing the admin console altogether. I have enabled the NBConsole logging on the Windows admin box but don't see any gethostbyname type errors, nothing much that gives me any clues at all but I'll provide a sample log file if that's any help. This afternoon I'm going to try returning the server to only a single NIC with no trunking or similar and see if that fixes the problem, then do the reconfiguration back to where we are now, one step at a time testing each change, to see if I can work out exactly what caused the problem to occur in the first place. Unless the above gives any ideas of anything further I can try first? Thanks Niall

NetBackup Windows admin console very slow

14 Replies

J_H_Is_gone
Level 6
15 years ago
As the windows console is so easy to remove and install I would do just that.

un-install from the PC and reinstall -- it may have something to do with something in it having issues finding the server again.

I had the same issue once, and I just un-installed it and reinstalled - worked OK for me then.
Niall_Porter
Level 4
15 years ago

OK I tried removing and reinstalling the Windows client on the affected machine but still no joy - the native Windows admin console app still takes several minutes saying "Opening EMM database" before allowing media-related functions and sometimes when doing ejects, times out saying eject aborted due to errors. Looking at policies seems to take a long time to get started too. The Java-based client I use on my workstation is still fine, however, and backup performance is still good.

Is there a known issue using Sun Trunking with NetBackup?
Niall_Porter
Level 4
15 years ago

I hate to do this but - BUMP - this is still a big issue for us. The Windows NBU admin console (i.e. native Windows one, not Java version) is *very* slow doing media-related operations. In particular, when clicking on "Media" in the tree view on the left the hourglass appears with the message "Opening EMM database" and this stays there for a long time (approx 5 minutes). Doing tape ejects takes a very long time also and sometimes fails with no real explanation.

Can anyone please give me some idea as to how to go about troubleshooting this, or where to look?
Andy_Welburn
Level 6
15 years ago
that have been removed from your environment or switched off that are still referenced by NetBackup?

Check in ALL listings that you can find for references to the above e.g. Master Server properties(inc firewall & servers tab), Media servers etc etc etc.

Name resolution issues for media servers? IP lookup could be slowing things? May seem obvious, but a lot of the slow down you experience could 'simply' be NB looking for resources it can't find (i.e. other hosts).

Couple of T/N's, but these mainly focussing on "missing" media servers:
DOCUMENTATION: The NetBackup Windows Administration console is very slow when attempting to view the activity monitor.

The NetBackup Administration Console responds very slowly if server names from the Enterprise Media Manager database cannot be resolved to an IP address.

What made you query Sun Trunking? Is this set up correctly? Is there some n/w or resolution issue here maybe?

PS: don't worry about bumping!

***EDIT***
One day, just one day I'm going to read things thru'!! If the slow down happened after your n/w changes then I would have to point the finger there.
We implemented Sun Trunking many moons ago with no issues.
Niall_Porter
Level 4
15 years ago
Hey, thanks for the quick response.

We haven't removed any media servers, the only media services are run on the same machine as the master. Running "nbemmcmd -listhosts" on the master server showed an old NDMP host that doesn't exist any more so I took that out with nbemmcmd -deletehost, but that hasn't helped.

I tried nbemmcmd.exe -listhosts on the Windows machine running the admin console and got the following error:

NBEMMCMD, Version:6.5.4
Failed to initialize EMM connection. Verify that network access to the EMM serv
er is available and that the services nbemm and pbx_exchange are running on the
EMM server. (195)
Command did not complete successfully.

Did check those processes and both are running normally.

I also noticed that it does take a while to open the Activity Monitor (about 20-30 seconds) on the Windows admin console, again this displays the "Opening EMM database" message during the waiting time. Additionally, when I attempt to look inside the "Media" branch of the left tree view under "Media and Device Management" the NBConsole.exe process maxes out the CPU on the machine. Even after five minutes or so and the media is being displayed in the main panel on the right, that process continues to consume all available CPU. CPU usage only returns to normal on closing the admin console altogether.
I have enabled the NBConsole logging on the Windows admin box but don't see any gethostbyname type errors, nothing much that gives me any clues at all but I'll provide a sample log file if that's any help. This afternoon I'm going to try returning the server to only a single NIC with no trunking or similar and see if that fixes the problem, then do the reconfiguration back to where we are now, one step at a time testing each change, to see if I can work out exactly what caused the problem to occur in the first place. Unless the above gives any ideas of anything further I can try first?

Thanks
Niall
Andy_Welburn
Level 6
15 years ago
GENERAL ERROR: Admin Console hangs after reboot. Errors connecting to Activity Monitor and Storage Units.
marekkedzierski
Level 6
15 years ago

I had the same issue .. Windows remote console wanted to resolve all IP addresses defined on Master Server.. I know it's strange but after adding few lines to hosts file on remote console machie with all IP addresses and dns name of Master Server it works fine.
Niall_Porter
Level 4
15 years ago
OK tried that - copied the entire hosts file from the NBU server to the hosts file on the windows box. Still no improvement.
marekkedzierski
Level 6
15 years ago
Open java console on the same machine. Find logs of java console. It will show you info about ip addresses that can't be resolved.
My customers had the same issue and I've found that it was a problem with ip addresses configured on Master Server but not defined in dns. Windows console hanged for few minutes but java worked fine. Java console showed error with resolving of ip address but there was no timeout.
Niall_Porter
Level 4
15 years ago

OK I can try that, but where do I find Java console logs? Or how do I switch this on? Also, does the java console still exist on a 6.5.4 installation with the native Windows console?

Sorry, not very familiar with the Windows stuff, I'm normally 100% Unix at work! :)