Importing a catalog from another Master

[LetThereBeZeros]

I have a master that we shut down at a site, it would be nice to have that masters info loaded into my master server at my location if i ever need to do a restore of something from that site we shut down.

My question is can i import that catalog into my catalog, and how would i do it.  My system is at 6.5.3, the shutdown site was at 6.5.

I have the catalog off disk, and i have all the tapes that have data from the site we shut down.

Thanks,

[Abesama]

1. Import phase 1 and phase 2 from every single tape
This will properly do the job - good.
Will take so much of time if you have hundreds of tapes - bad.

2. Copy the image database directory over.
This is not a supported way, and it may result in some unexpected behavior in NetBackup image clean up.
By copying the old server's /usr/openv/netbackup/db/images/clinetnames* directories over to the current NetBackup master, you'll have the catalog updated.
When you need to restore something, you do the "preview" (if you are using Java GUI) and it will tell you the required tapes, then you just load them in your tape library, update the inventory, immediately move them to a safe volume pool so that the new backup jobs do not overwrite on those tapes, then kick off the restore.

That's what I can think of.
Because the versions are different, and the hostnames are different, I don't think you can really merge the EMM database.

Abe

[Marianne · Accepted solution]

'Recovery without Import' is perfectly supported by Symantec. Procedure documented in this White Paper:
http://eval.symantec.com/mktginfo/products/White_Papers/Data_Protection/nbu_wp_replicatingbucatalogs_103003.pdf

It is extremely important that media from original be placed in a separate pool to prevent them from being overwritten.

[Abesama]

The document is from the days of version 4x 5x, will it be ok to try the procedure with NBU 6.x?

I heard (from this forum page) that if there are no image database entries, image cleanup process expires all the media in EMM.

Won't NBU clean up the image database, if all those tapes are not in assigned status?

Abe

[J_H_Is_gone]

 I do the method suggested by the white paper but a little different.

I rdist(replicate) my image dir from my prod master on to my dr master but to a different dir.

Say from prodmaster /opt/openv/netbackup/db/images  to drmaster /opt/prodimages

then when I need to do a restore from one of the images  i just make a link

/opt/openv/netbackup/db/images/prodserverA -> /opt/prodimages/prodserverA

now when I open the BAR and put in prodserverA as my source server it see the images and I get to do the restore.

as you will have the SAME server names in both I am not sure how you could do the link

when I am done with my restore I remove my link.  this way I don't get any database mismaatch errors.

I also clean up old images on my dr server once they are expired ( my rdist does this for me)

I know it won't work for you exactly but maybe you can use the info to find a way that will.