Add tapes with old Labels

[ipmanyak]

I have Symantec NBU 7.5.0.6  Windows 2003,  pool in standalone tape drive  with the currents  labels:  A00000 - A00028. Tape drive is not tape library.

I was given from other organization six  tapes with  labels:  S0000 - S00005. Information from these tapes isn't necessary.

How to add these other tapes to my pool with labels A00029 - A00034 ?

[sdo]

I think you need the NetBackup Media Manager "vmadd" command, see page 790 of the command reference manual for some examples:

https://support.symantec.com/en_US/article.DOC8601.html

[Marianne]

If all images on these media id's have expired, easiest will be to delete A000 tapes.
Inventory will add media with new barcode label.
Next step will be to manually label the tapes to overwrite the internal A000 label.
Use the GUI - select the tape, right-click, Label. De-select 'verify label option'.

If tapes still contain valid media, you can use vmupdate command to add new barcode to A000 media-id.
e.g. vmchange -m <A000...> -barcode <6 or 8 character barcode>

See this post: Relabeling default media id A0000 to new barcode label on tape 

[ipmanyak]

Marianne. This tapes S0000-S00006  tapes not my, their never was in my pool. My current tapes A0000-A000028. I want to add these other tapes to my pool with labels A00029 - A00034. May be I must erase or clean these 6 tapes and when my tape A00028 wil be written completely  and removed I simply  insert the cleared tape  (as  a new  tape from shop). The label A00029 will be assigned automatically? Am i right ?

How to clean or erase old tapes which is not in pool and nbu catalog?

[Marianne · Accepted solution]

Apologies for the misunderstanding.

You say you don't have a tape library?

Tape drive is not tape library.

This means your current A000 tapes do not have actual barcode labels on them, right? 

If you want to use the S000 tapes with similar media-ids as your current A000 tapes, best to remove the S000 barcode labels and stick another label with the next A000 media id on it.

So, the 6 physical tapes will have labels/stickers on them as follows:
A00029
A00030
A00031
A00032
A00033
A00034

Next go to Media Gui and add new volumes: A00029 - 34
Ensure density matches that of the tape drive and select a pool. 

Once added, you insert tape A00029 into the tape drive, wait for the 'Ready' light on the drive, then use bplabel to overwrite the internal label:
bplabel -m A00029 -d hcart -o -p NetBackup -u 0

Repeat for rest of tapes.

[ipmanyak]

Thanks.

Tape S000 and A000 does not have barcode.

On Friday the tape drive  will be free and I will try commands  vmadd and blabel.

[sdo · Accepted solution]

If you want to add new standalone media AND you want to erase (and logically relabel the media), some examples:

​...check drive is configured:
   tpconfig -dl
...and note the device number for the -u switch in next command...

...physically insert the unlabelled media (or media to be re-used), then:
   vmadd   -m A99999 -mt hcart2 -p 4
   bplabel -m A99999  -d hcart2 -p Scratch -u 0

...to label a 4MM DAT DDS-4 tape:
   vmadd   -m D99999 -mt 4mm -p 4
   bplabel -m D99999  -d 4mm -p Scratch -u 1

...to logically assign media type hcart2 (i.e. typically an LTO5 media)...
...for an actual LTO4 media, because standalone will not have an actual...
...barcode from which to determine media type, i.e. no trailing...
..."Ln" suffix (e.g. a real barcode of "ABC999Ln"), so force an LTO4...
...media to be thought of as an LTO5 media, an example is:
   vmadd   -m 400001 -mt hcart2 -p 4
   bplabel -m 400001  -d hcart2 -p Scratch -u 0

.

N.B: You may need to adjust the media type (density) to hcart or hcart2 or hcart3.

N.B: You may need to adjust the pool number, and pool name in the commands above.

[ipmanyak]

On last week there was no opportunity. I will try on this week.

[Marianne]

Glad it worked for you!

On a side note:

It seems you have no tapes in CatalogBackup pool.
Does this mean that you are not taking Catalog backups?

How will you recover if you have catastrophic failure of your master server?

[ipmanyak]

I dont understand about CatalogBackup pool. Tapes  must be in this pool ?

CatalogBackup pool  is fully empty. Symantec NBU was set before me.

[ipmanyak]

Results.

1 - Insert  other tape with  the label  S00005  in tape drive

2 - Add new tape to the EMM database by the command:

vmadd -m A00029 -mt hcart2

without this  command, the command blabel  wrote me that

requested media id is not assigned to this host in the EMM database

2 - Go to GUI Media and Device Manager  -  Standalone

find our new tape, 

a) select new  tape  A00029

b) select in menu CHAHGE

c) select New Pool and assing pool name, for me its - Netbackup

3 - Go to GUI Media and Device Manager  -  Volume pool - Netbackup 

and I see there my new tape A00029

4 - in command line run:

bplabel -m A00029 -d hcart2 -o -p NetBackup -u 0

5 - in command line run the script:

C:\Program Files\VERITAS\NetBackup\bin\goodies\available_media.cmd

and we see:

media   media   robot   robot   robot   side/   ret    size     status

 ID     type    type      #     slot    face    level  KBytes

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

CatalogBackup pool

DataStore pool

NetBackup pool

A00005  HCART2   NONE     -       -      -       3     9814440  ACTIVE

A00029  HCART2   NONE     -       -      -       -     -        AVAILABLE

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

That's all.

Thanks for SDO and Marianne !

media   media   robot   robot   robot   side/   ret    size     status
 ID     type    type      #     slot    face    level  KBytes
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
CatalogBackup pool

DataStore pool

NetBackup pool

A00005  HCART2   NONE     -       -      -       3     9814440  ACTIVE
A00029  HCART2   NONE     -       -      -       -     -        AVAILABLE
A00030  HCART2   NONE     -       -      -       -     -        AVAILABLE
A00000  HCART2   NONE     -       -      -       3     811592384        FULL
A00001  HCART2   NONE     -       -      -       3     931665408        FULL
A00002  HCART2   NONE     -       -      -       3     912009728        FULL
A00003  HCART2   NONE     -       -      -       3     927526208        FULL
A00004  HCART2   NONE     -       -      -       3     918935575        FULL
A00006  HCART2   NONE     -       -      -       3     881734262        FULL
A00007  HCART2   NONE     -       -      -       3     1068294022       FULL
A00008  HCART2   NONE     -       -      -       3     1337872144       FULL
A00009  HCART2   NONE     -       -      -       3     1015917603       FULL
A00010  HCART2   NONE     -       -      -       3     1023403840       FULL
A00011  HCART2   NONE     -       -      -       3     981597760        FULL
A00012  HCART2   NONE     -       -      -       3     922161856        FULL
A00013  HCART2   NONE     -       -      -       3     866151936        FULL
A00014  HCART2   NONE     -       -      -       3     878637035        FULL
A00015  HCART2   NONE     -       -      -       3     1158170402       FULL
A00016  HCART2   NONE     -       -      -       3     1210106625       FULL
A00017  HCART2   NONE     -       -      -       3     937306048        FULL
A00018  HCART2   NONE     -       -      -       3     881845504        FULL
A00019  HCART2   NONE     -       -      -       3     817676544        FULL
A00020  HCART2   NONE     -       -      -       3     767820928        FULL
A00021  HCART2   NONE     -       -      -       3     776660800        FULL
A00022  HCART2   NONE     -       -      -       3     808256384        FULL
A00023  HCART2   NONE     -       -      -       3     876669981        FULL

[Marianne]

Yes. CatalogBackup pool is a separate pool.

You need to add tape(s) to this pool in order to configure a Catalog Backup policy.

Please read through Chapter 17 of NBU Admin Guide 1 : Protecting the NetBackup catalog

[ipmanyak]

Catalog Backup policy  is configured (policy type - NBU-CATALOG) and  it is stored on a special disk storage. It isn't enough of it?

[Marianne]

Disk storage is fine (if not on same filesystem/volume as NBU installation).

Apologies for adding a different topic here...