Manually expiring tapes

[JHeaton]

NBU - 7.1 Capacity

OS - W2K8R2

I implemented a new Vault process for this past weekend, but forgot to take into account the max number of copies setting.  So, the process didn't collect and duplicate all backup jobs.  I've increased the max copy setting, and I'm re-running the vault policy manually, but I'd really like to expire the tapes that went over the weekend, so I can reuse them, instead of having "wasted" tapes for a year.  I looked in the NBU Admin Guide, and found how to expire backup jobs, but that doesn't cover the tapes.

[Rajesh_s1 · Accepted solution]

path veritas/netbackup/bin/admincmd --- after that run the below command ,

bpexpdate -m (media id) -d 0 --- this command will expire the media immediately .

Becareful while expiring the medias , precheck before doing.

[JHeaton]

precheck?

[Rajesh_s1]

Reconfirm the media id which you are expiring .

If by mistakenly you expire any other media id then the whole image content will be lost . Agian you need to import the tape for to get back the images...

[JHeaton]

Ok, so as long as I get the Media ID correct, that command will expire all images on that tape, and I can then put it back in, inventory the robot, and have it show up in my scratch pool, right?

[Rajesh_s1]

Yes correct , no need to inventory the robot . Once upon the successful expiration it will be unassigned and you can change it to which ever the pool you required ...

just you need to refresh once ...

If you have configured the medias to go into scratch pool once upon expiration it will go to scratch pool else it will be in the same pool which it was earlier.

manually right click on the media and move to the required pool ...

[JHeaton]

Well, the media is outside the library at the moment, sitting on my desk, so I'd need to inventory at some point, so NBU knows the media is in the library.  I'm assuming I'll need to do that before the expire command, right?

[Rajesh_s1]

its not , it will expire the images of the media from the database . So its not required to be in library itself . Once you do the inventory it will show as unassigned and then you can use.

Else you put  the media and do the inventory and then expire .. as you wish ...