Old backups not being deleted/expired per policy

[kp-]

• Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard SP1. x64
• Master and media server on single server
• Netbackup 7.5.0.7
• Local disk, basic disk for storage

My retention policy was 1 week, its now set to 2 and 3 weeks depending on the policy. I noticed the other day that I'm running out of disk space...

Looking at the backups in the folders (D:\BACKUPS - each policy has a subfolder in this folder.)  I see an img and info file for each backup.. Some of these backups at this point are a month old. I want these deleted to make space for more backups. Why are these old backups not being purged? This is a real big concern as to why NBU is not puring old backups when the retention period is set for only 1-3 weeks depending on polocy.

The odd thing is that I dont see these backups in the catalog section. If I do a search I get a warning like message...

Catalog Search information

INF - Skipping backup id C156646_OS821F_Drive_1_5_172.29.204.42_1396802483, copy 1 is expired.

INF - Skipping backup id XPSP3-TDS_1396581843, copy 1 is expired.

INF - Skipping backup id XPBasic_1396675879, copy 1 is expired.

This is what I see for example.. some of these images that are not in the catalog I see in this list.. but if they are expired, then why do they still exist on the disk taking up space?  Please help!!

[revarooo]

What does this give you:

bpimagelist -d 01/01/1970 | findstr 1396802483

bpimagelist -d 01/01/1970 | findstr 1396675879

Let's see if those images are in the netbackup database.

They may just be stranded images,

[kp-]

I see a bunch of output from both of those commands. Looks like a few images....

To add too... I do see the backups that are missing in the catalog on the Disk Reports-->Disk Reports and shows expired with a time.. so I assume thats maybe tonight?

"stranded images" Thats the wording I was looking for.. hah! :)

Thanks!

[Marianne · Accepted solution]

Can you see that Image Cleanup is running at regular intervals? Every 12 hours is the default.

If so, are they completing with status 0? 

Create bpdm folder on the media server to check if nbdelete of disk images complete successfully. On the master, bpdbm log will confirm image expiration.

PS: You may want to add tape to this environment for better disk space management, or even better: Deduplication!

[ontherocks · Accepted solution]

nbdelete main function is to remove expired fragments from disk units. It can also be used to purge those image fragments from the database when the cleaning fails for one or another reason.

To force a cleanup of all diskpools, and remove references in database, run
<install path>\veritas\netbackup\bin\admincmd\nbdelete -allvolumes -force

The command itself sounds brutal, but is considered a safe command due to it works only on expired images.

There are also switches to make it run only on designated storage units.

nbdelete -h to see all other switches.

[kp-]

Hello Marianne,

Image cleanup = the requested operation was successfully completed(0)

I'm seeing successful logs in both log files you mentioned, but its for log files.not images.  I'm not seeing nbdelete directly... I may need to wait longer... 

Tape may be a good idea, I will def look into it! 

Thanks again.

[kp-]

ontherocks,

Thanks for the command.. Basically what I was looking for! I do need to understand why things are not purging and or if they are and I'm not being patient enough....