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How does Netbackup treat iSCSI-connected volumes on clients?

kcraig
Level 2

I am using Netbackup 7.5.0.6 on a 2008 R2 server.  I have several policies that use the "ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES" directive.  I'm not the one who set up this server and most of the policies, so I don't know how much customization (if any) was done.

My question is: does the ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES directive see iSCSI targets as being local (as opposed to something like NFS)?

What I've noticed is that I have one server whose iSCSI-connected volumes all get ignored.  I have another server where only one of the iSCSI target volumes (out of 6) gets backed up.  And then I have a 3rd server where one of the volumes (out of 6) gets backed up sometimes and ignored the other times.  All three of these Windows servers belong to the same policy.

Can someone tell me what the expected behavior should be?  And maybe explain why there is a lack of consistency?

Thanks

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

sdo
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Certified

NetBackup Client should treat any iSCSI volumes as if they were like any other normal local volume.

NetBackup Client doesn't see the iSCSI or FC (i.e. SAN) targets of disk LUNs - all it cares about is whether the volume is already mounted, accessible and not locked.

Unfortunately there could be many reason why only some volumes are backed-up, these typically being: volume is not selected in a policy, volume is excluded by a client, volume is in a cluster resource group and may appear to be mounted on a client, but is not actually accessible due to clustering, and so win2koption (a NetBackup Client) command may have been run to configure a client to ignore inaccessible volumes.

Also, if a volume is backed-up one day by clientA and then by clientB on another day, then this is also indicative of a volume residing in a cluster resource group.

I hate to say this, but I think you are going to have a dig a bit deeper, gather some hard facts, and then come back to us on here... if you still can't figure it out after doing some research .

View solution in original post

5 REPLIES 5

sdo
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Certified

NetBackup Client should treat any iSCSI volumes as if they were like any other normal local volume.

NetBackup Client doesn't see the iSCSI or FC (i.e. SAN) targets of disk LUNs - all it cares about is whether the volume is already mounted, accessible and not locked.

Unfortunately there could be many reason why only some volumes are backed-up, these typically being: volume is not selected in a policy, volume is excluded by a client, volume is in a cluster resource group and may appear to be mounted on a client, but is not actually accessible due to clustering, and so win2koption (a NetBackup Client) command may have been run to configure a client to ignore inaccessible volumes.

Also, if a volume is backed-up one day by clientA and then by clientB on another day, then this is also indicative of a volume residing in a cluster resource group.

I hate to say this, but I think you are going to have a dig a bit deeper, gather some hard facts, and then come back to us on here... if you still can't figure it out after doing some research .

Marianne2
Level 4

iSCSI volumes should be seen by the OS as local drives. 

Are the iSCSI volumes mounted as drive letters or mount points (directory under a drive letter)?
Unfortunately NBU Windows Client will only look for drive letters with ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES whereas NBU on Unix/Linux will pick up these 'nested mounts'. 

If mount points, select 'cross mount points'.
This should ONLY EVER be done on MS-Windows policy with Windows clients.
On Unix/Linux ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES with cross mount points will result in duplicate backups for nested mount points. 

Nicolai
Moderator
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Partner    VIP   

if on doubt on whether Netbackup would consider a volume local and thus protected by ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES, or not. Simply run the bpmount command on the client. 

All drives considered "local" will a be prefixed with a local: in the bpmount command

C:\Program Files\VERITAS\NetBackup\bin>bpmount
local: Shadow Copy Components:\ on Shadow Copy Components:\
CDROM: A:\ on A:\
local: C:\ on C:\
local: D:\ on D:\
CDROM: X:\ on X:\
EXIT STATUS 0: the requested operation was successfully completed

sdo
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Certified

Oops - I had assumed that the OP was referring to only iSCSI LUNs mounted as volumes on Windows based clients.

If the iSCSI LUNs are presented to Linux/Unix backup clients - then heed Marianne's and Nicolai's advice.

kcraig
Level 2

Thank you everyone.  There were indeed exclusions that someone had previously configured on a couple of these clients in violation of our policy naming convention (in our organization, for any policy where exclusions above Netbackup's defaults have been added, the policy name is supposed to be prefixed with "Custom_").  It was my fault for assuming our admins had all followed convention.

This definitely explains why only some of the iSCSI volumes were targeted for backup, but it doesn't explain why one particular volume on one particular server gets backed up sometimes and not others.  Since I have now explicitly added that volume to the list of exclusions, that point is moot.

Thanks again for helping steer me in the right direction.

 

Kevin