Netbackup Enterpise Server 6.5.2a does not detect the changer

[Nova]

I've looked pretty long and hard for possible reasons for my problem, but no success yet.
I've been trying to fix this problem for days, and after many hours, I am not at all sure of what to even try next. I hope this message is not overly long, but I wanted to give some good detail.

6.5.2a Master/Media Server on Solaris 10
6.5.2a Media/VCB Proxy Server on Windows 2003
ADIC scalar i200, FC connection. 6 FC IBM Ultrium-TD3 drives
The Master/Media server has 4 drives allocate to it,it is the robotic control host as well as the EMM host
The Windows Media/VCB server had one drive allocated to it.
One drive remaining in ADIC not yet configured in Netbackup

I was in the GUI on the master server, in the process of configuring the last drive, adding it to the Windows media server, when a someone initiated a reboot on the Windows server (yikes). On the master, the Netbackup Device Manager was being restarted at this time I think, but it just spun on and on and I knew something was wrong.

When the windows media server came back up, I was actually able to run a VCB snapshot backup, but it was using the drive that had always been configured, and not the new one. The Topology layout did not display this drive at all. Not a great result but I at least had the original configuration working, with some cleanup to be done obviously.
To make things more exciting, a fibre cable connecting the ADIC's switch port to the patch panel failed intermittently. After I troublshot and fixed that, I could no longer get Netbackup to see the robot. Things I did"
1. rebooted the Windows media server and recycled Netbackup on the master
2. Uninstalled the changer in windows, and installed it using the GenChanger so it appears under Unknown Medium Changers.
3. ran \volmgr\scan and \volmgr\tpconfig -d which did not report the Changer
4. double-checked the zoning, all is correct and the same as it was when everything worked fine

Windows shows this device fine in Device Manager. No errors are seen in either System or Application event logs. RSM service is disabled. The zoning and the fabric look good. Netbackup sees the drives, but not the Scalar. I am scratching my head.

Does anyone have any ideas what I could try next? This setup was working great until this reboot incident while I was configuring.

cheers

J

[Ashz_Tomz]

downlaod teh veritas device drivers and try it ..

[Nova]

Thanks, but the generic driver is the correct one to use. When setting this up earlier, I had all kinds of problems with vendor supplied drivers I tried.  I'm just trying to get things back to where they were.

thanks again.

[Nathan_Kippen]

So your master server is the Solaris 10 box.  It has 4 drives and the robotc control host allocated to it.

You said you lost connectivity to the robot.

>>> 1. rebooted the Windows media server and recycled Netbackup on the master

Why would rebooting the windows server bring back the robot?  Isn't it connect to your Solaris?

Can you confirm connectivity to your robot on your Solaris?  (robtest, scan, etc..)

Maybe I misunderstood the scenario.

[Nova · Accepted solution]

The two Netbackup media server share the robot. SSO is not being used.
The Solaris master/media is the robot controller host.
Latest device mappings file loaded into emm.
The robot for the Windows media server is no longer in the config. Trying to add it from the admin console (working from the master) fails, Configure Storage Devices wizard reports the drive only.
\volmgr\scan.exe does not pick up the robot. It sees the tape drive, but not the robot.

I rebooted the Windows server mainly because I figured why not, after all it is the device host. I could not see anything that jumped out as being the problem, i.e. robot serial # mismatch being reported in Event logs, etc.

C:\Program Files\VERITAS\Volmgr\bin>tpautoconf -report_disc
======================= New Device (Drive) =======================
 Inquiry = "IBM     ULTRIUM-TD3     85P8"
 Serial Number = 1210134962
 Drive Path = Tape0

The output above is correct. It shows the IBM tape device which is recognized by the system, but is not configured in Netbackup, which is fine as I removed it.

When using the Configure Storage Devices wizard on the master, this drive is picked up, but not the robot (Netbackup probably uses scan.exe for this?)

I'm not a windows expert, and assumed that because the robot device can be configured in windows with success, and I see no errors anywhere, that windows can talk to it and that it is functioning fine. Obviously that is not the case, I guess, because scan.exe does not find it.

adad egty earlier suggested trying the Veritas drivers. I have the lastest Veritas device drivers installer, but it detects only the IBM drives, and does not even try to configure the Scalar robot. I may try the Quantum supplied driver just to see what happens,even though I can't operate with it (tried it without success three months ago, everything started working when I used GenChanger). 

thanks folks

J
 

[Nova]

Nothing was solved, but no point in keeping this open longer. I have a Windows problem, not a NetBackup problem.