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Best practise relocating the staging directory for catalog backup

jim_dalton
Level 6

As per subject, I would like to free some space and the copy of the catalog backup that lives permanently (!) in staging  is what I'm targetting. This is several Gb of data I'd like to relocate. Currently its /usr/openv/db/staging and I'm Solaris.

I can see two routes:

1) Create a new directory on my target disk and symlink /usr/openv/db/staging to it.

2) Create a new directory on my target disk, modify vxdbms.conf entry VXDBMS_NB_STAGING = to point to it and restart ...something: the relational dbs.Or maybe the whole of netb to be safe.

I'd prefer option 1, simplest, least intrusive. Anyone tried this and knows for sure that the symlink will be happily followed by the catalog backup processes?

Additional benefit: it should be quicker as the staging process will be read disk A, write disk B as opposed to read and write disk A. Win-win I'm hoping.

I've used OS tools to demonstrate that the staging directory is not actively open, so I'm confident opton 1 should just work but input from the comunity always welcome.

Thanks in advance, Jim

PS Is there something amiss with Symantec forum generally as I seem to be able to google documents referring to the subject but the link fails to find the actual reference within Symantec eg: https://support.symantec.com/en_US/article.HOWTO91863.html ?

 

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RiaanBadenhorst
Moderator
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Hi Jim

 

The staging folder is only really used during those moment of the cat backup. You can even modify whilst the relational databases are online with nbdb_admin –vxdbms_nb_staging /staging.

 

I suppose either would work so you should decide which cleanest. Since there is no burning need for a symlink i.e. the product cannot be update to use a different location, or you have to copy everything somewhere else etc I would just update the vxdbms.conf using the command.

 

FYI, a lot of notes were removed from the knowledge base so you'll only find them in Google cache ;)

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5 REPLIES 5

jim_dalton
Level 6

Self-update: theres a command that deals with this explicitly and no restart.

nbdb_admin -vxdbms_nb_staging new_staging_area

 

RiaanBadenhorst
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Hi Jim

 

The staging folder is only really used during those moment of the cat backup. You can even modify whilst the relational databases are online with nbdb_admin –vxdbms_nb_staging /staging.

 

I suppose either would work so you should decide which cleanest. Since there is no burning need for a symlink i.e. the product cannot be update to use a different location, or you have to copy everything somewhere else etc I would just update the vxdbms.conf using the command.

 

FYI, a lot of notes were removed from the knowledge base so you'll only find them in Google cache ;)

jim_dalton
Level 6

Thanks for pointers Riaan. There wont be a need to copy anything, it'll just feed new staging to the new location I would hope. In an ideal world the staging would be deleted once its no longer needed. Cant see why they'd leave it on disk, maybe good to use it for restore in some circumstances.

Why was the knowledge base purged?!

Jim

RiaanBadenhorst
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Who knows, TMI

mph999
Level 6
Employee Accredited

I seem to recall a issue with symlinks and catalog restores, best go with the official command.

The files are left there, the space is really unusable for anything else as its needed for the next catalog backup, so we leave the files and just overwrite. 

I've saved many cutstomers with this local copy after they found some issue with the backed up copy of the NBDB, trust me, it's good to have.