cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Newbie to Veritas Netbackup - Backups Failing

babulmiah
Level 3
Hi,

I am completely new to Veritas Netbackup and have been given the task to monitor the scheduled backups on a daily basis.

The backups work just about once a week instead of every day of teh week.

On most days the backup hangs and is still running when i come into the office in the morning.

I am a complete newbie to veritas Netbackup and I need help is understanding\finding out where the problem lies.

I have created directories in the netbackup\log directory so that logs can be created by the processes but i have no idea which is the main log to look at.

The software is installed on a linux box.

Can anyone help me out, as this will be greatly appreciated.



Thank you.


10 REPLIES 10

rj_nbu
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified
 Hi

You need to isolate the issue on per client basis. Since netbackup works in very vast environments with numerous technologies and 3rd party products, it is impossible to have a generic solution to every problem. My suggestion is to islate the issues on every client.

For example:

1. Does the backups fail? If yes, with what error code.
2. How much data are you backing up and when are you backing up.
3. is there a conflict in schedules for clients. i.e are some clients waiting for resources when they should be running
4. Network speed and capacity
etc

-Rajeev

Giroevolver
Level 6
I would suggest reading the Manuals as this does give you tips and hints on how to setup the enviroment and troubleshoot

Seth_Bokelman
Level 5
Certified
Does it only "fail" on incrementals?  On very large servers, I've seen the calculations for incrementals take several hours before the data starts flowing, so the backup can appear to be hung, but is really just identifying the changed files that need to be sent.

babulmiah
Level 3
Hi Guys,

thanks for replying.

Ok, the backup does not fail with any error messages, what happens is that the backup hangs and when i come in the morning i find that the job is still running.

The policy that is scheduled to run everyday include FULL back ups of two databases, one is for the live production database and the second one is a backup of the training database.

What tends to happen is that, after the live backup has complted, when it comes to backing up the training database, it hangs all night long. In the end, i am having to cancel the job.


Seth_Bokelman
Level 5
Certified
I've seen that happen when network port duplexing is improperly set.  NetBackup and autonegotiate don't tend to work well together, in fact, you'll find that the troubleshooting docs tell you to turn it off as the first step, and it's what I'd suggest.  Double check the settings on your switch ports and the settings on your clients to make sure that both are manually set to the same speed and duplex, and see if that doesn't solve your issue.

babulmiah
Level 3

how will the autonegotiate setting being turned off affect me?

does this mean that once the live backup has completed, i will have to manually take the backup of the training database??

what i did on friday was change the policy to take backup of one of the databases to find out if there is a problem with taking backups of two databases. Ive just checked that the backup failed over weekend. I will have to get the exact message and will post here.

Seth_Bokelman
Level 5
Certified
Turning off autonegotiate just means that your speed and duplex has to be manually set at the server NIC and at the switch.  Rather than relying on them to automatically figure out what speed and duplex to use to talk to each other, you're going to manually specify it, as NetBackup and autonegotiate often don't work well together.  This only affects the networking of your system, it will not affect how your database backups are performed.

babulmiah
Level 3
I have checked that we do not have this option enabled.

what is interesting is that there are no errors at all in the netbacklogs, but rman is failing to exit properly.

i have seen rman processes left running in the morning.

have you seen this before

scorpy_582
Level 6
To backup oracle database, do you use script or template?

If you are using a script, check the output file of the script.

Check the bphdb logs on the client which will have errors or atleast it will say where is it stuck at.

Try to backup the training database individually in a different policy and see if that works.

Try backing up just the control file and see if that completes

babulmiah
Level 3
we are using a script and have checked the output of the rman script and it definately confirms that rman is not exiting properly.

we are on oracle 9i