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Drive_Letter:\install_path\Veritas\NetBackup\online_util\fi_cntl

backup-botw
Level 6

I am curious as to what exactly this data is. I am sure it is posted somewhere, but for some reason i was having trouble tracking it down. I am wondering if someone could explain what all this stuff is that is in this directory and if the data should be periodically cleared out. I am seeing this directory on my VMware Bakcup Host and on one of them it has grown to 7GB in size. Not huge by any means, but if its data that Netbackup should be cleaning up and isnt then I would like to manually clean this up perodically like I have started doing on the BPFSMAP_TMPDIR.

In regards to manual cleanup...if there is anything else that NB doesnt cleanup itself that I should be looking out for please let me know.

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Accepted Solutions

mph999
Level 6
Employee Accredited

Right, apologies for the delay.  I wanted to heck with my colleague who was out for a few days last week.

Previous versions of NBU had some issues cleaning up files in this dir.  However, going forward, things should be more stable.

The old files should be fine to delete dating back to 2010 - the problem can arise if you delete recent files relating to incremental backups before the next full runs.

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mph999
Level 6
Employee Accredited

When you browse VMs to add policy clients, bmvmutil caches the inventory fi_cntl.

A brief overview:

bpVMutil  connects to each vCenter and ESX server configured with credentials in NetBackup.

bpVMutil reads the inventory from VMware and resolves VM IP addresses to hostnames.

bpVMutil caches the inventory in Netbackup\online_util\fi_cntl.

 

Martin

mph999
Level 6
Employee Accredited

As far as I know, it doesn't get cleaned up.  i'll check tomorrow when I'm in the office.

7GB seems a bit big - how many VMs are there in total.

backup-botw
Level 6

Our VM policies are query based so we dont browse to add clients to our policies. Not sure if that is what you were referring to.

In this particular environment we have 3123 VMs.

I figured the vcenterservername.xml file was probably in relation to the VMs being cached, but I see a ton of LOCK files in there and some other stuff. I am not familiar with what all this data actually is.

mph999
Level 6
Employee Accredited

The inventory is still run, even when query based, the 'filters' from the query are applied after the full inventory is taken. 

Will_Restore
Level 6

Sometimes they get cleaned up, sometimes they don't.  I usually delete any such files over a week old. 

backup-botw
Level 6

Thank you for that info. I didnt realize it was still doing an inventory.

mph999
Level 6
Employee Accredited

Ahh thanks Will, didn't know that ...


 

backup-botw
Level 6

So it is ok to delete this data? Is there anything in there that should not be deleted?

mph999
Level 6
Employee Accredited

OK ....  I had a chat with my colleague who is a bit of a specialist /expert and all round nice guy when it comes to NetBackup and VMware ...  (he's also a nice guy at other times as well ;0)  )

BPFSMAP_TMPDIR should not be deleted manually

Perhaps this TN reflects the version on NBU you are using:  http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH226358

fi_cntl should clear down after a full backup.

backup-botw
Level 6

BPFSMAP_TMPDIR

Yes that is correct as far as the version I am on. We currently run 7.6.0.2.

We are using the workaround option until we upgrade to 7.7.

Workaround:
Periodically remove the contents of <InstallDir>\NetBackup\BPFSMAP_TMPDIR directory when no VMware backups are running.

fi_cntl

They are not being cleared out. I currently have 367,847 files from 2014 all the way back to 2010.

mph999
Level 6
Employee Accredited

OK, excellent - hopefullly your questions are all answered.

 

 

Will_Restore
Level 6

fi_cntl should clear down after a full backup.

 

Now that makes sense.  Guessing anything over a week old is the result of a failed Full backup.  Now I'll have to test that theory. 

 

backup-botw
Level 6

Almost there. Just curious about this part...

fi_cntl

They are not being cleared out. I currently have 367,847 files from 2014 all the way back to 2010.

Is it ok to manually delete this data?

mph999
Level 6
Employee Accredited

IHow often do you run full backups ?  This should, as far as I know, clear things down.

I'll hazard a guess, that you have run a full at some point since 2010 ... so perhaps reasonable to suggest it's not clearing.

I'll check and report back ...

mph999
Level 6
Employee Accredited

It also helps if I fully answer the original question.

Apart from my original answer, fi_cntl holds data about snapshots taken when you run backups.

Don't delete anything in this file manually.

I'm still looking into whats' what in this area ...  not much is documented about it, that I can find.

backup-botw
Level 6

We run full backups every weekend.

mph999
Level 6
Employee Accredited

Super, I kinda figured that ...  but thought I had better check.

mph999
Level 6
Employee Accredited

Right, apologies for the delay.  I wanted to heck with my colleague who was out for a few days last week.

Previous versions of NBU had some issues cleaning up files in this dir.  However, going forward, things should be more stable.

The old files should be fine to delete dating back to 2010 - the problem can arise if you delete recent files relating to incremental backups before the next full runs.

backup-botw
Level 6

That makes sense. I wasn't going to go crazy with it, but I didn't understand why files that are a year or more old would be in there.

Thanks for tracking down this information.