Metabase.bin file not backed up by BEWS 10.0?

Hello,

Please refer to the following technote which talks about Metabase.bin:

What is "metabase" and why is it important to back it up?
http://support.veritas.com/docs/237007

Regards

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Thank you, Ajit. I searched for "metabase" and "metabase.bin" last week, but doc 237007 didn't come up in the results.

Let me review my new knowledge:
- BE does not back up the metabase.bin file (as a file).
- I have to go into IIS and manually do an IIS backup of the metabase.
- The file created when I tell IIS to do a backup is stored in the MetaBack directory, and BE will back this file up.
- To recover from my errors, I would have restored the metabase.bin file that BE saved from the MetaBack directory (if it had been necessary; it wasn't), then used IIS to restore from that restored file.

(I have seen from Microsoft info that IIS 6 uses .XML files instead of the .bin file used by IIS 4 & 5, so things might be different when I move to IIS 6, but I'm guessing things will work the same.)

Is the above correct? If it is, then I have to say I'm a little bothered by it, because (1) I have to backup the metabase manually in IIS, and can't count on BE helping me; and (2) I didn't realize my data was not being backed up. The BE logs say nothing about skipping this file. I assumed I had a copy.

What other files does BE treat in this way? Is there a list, or a Support Doc which talks about such files?

Thanks again for your help. Since my original post I have managed to get my Web sites back up and running, but not everything is the way it was before. But at least I'm getting wiser.

John

Hello,

Follow the technote given to do an IIS backup of the metabase followed by backup exec, please update us on the results. Backup exec should now have backed up the file.

NOTE : If we do not receive your reply within two business days, this post would be marked assumed answeredand would be moved toanswered questions pool.

Yeah, right. Thanks.

But before we close my question as assumed answered, let's just look again at what I wrote:

What other files does BE treat in this way? Is there a list, or a Support Doc which talks about such files?

It bothers me considerably that BE just silently ignores a file and does not report it as skipped or not backed up. BE does not backup metabase.bin and it doesn't log that fact. What other files suffer the same mistreatment?

Thanks for an actual answer.

John

I do not know about an existing list for such files, as they really do depend on the backed up system.

But here is a hint. :

Use sgmon.exe to write a sgmon.log while doing a backup of a singel file (e.g. boot.ini)
After the job has finished, check sgmon.log for the following entry: FilesNotToBackup and Hardcoded exclusion files:

following this entry the log will list all files and directories, that BE will NOT backup, no matter what you are going to do ! (these are not the files ignored due to agent backups etc. the exclusion is hardcoded ... and a bit of registry)

Hope this helps a bit.

Regards

uz

uz, thanks for your input. You are a wizard!

SGMon is a very cool tool. It shows me exactly what I wanted to know.

I just wonder how a normal user-type human is supposed to find out about this tool. It's certainly not in the Help within BE (even when I know to look for it).

Thanks for your help, and have a great day!

John

Ah, but I spoke a little too soon, before noting that SGMon does NOT list all the files that BE silently omits to back up. It turns out that the SGMon trick, cool as it is, does not mention metabase.bin or metabase.xml.

(I have since upgraded from Win2K to Windows Server 2003, which includes migration from IIS 5 to IIS 6. IIS 6 uses metabase.xml instead of metabase.bin. So now, BE cleverly does back up metabase.bin (which is now irrelevant), but not metabase.xml (which I actually need)).

*sigh*

That's why i have called it a "hint" not a solution. :-)

(I do not have such a list for myself... and if I had one, I'd be lucky.....)

Hello,

It appears that your issue is resolved. Hence we are closing this thread. For further queries, please open a new thread.

Regards,