Problem with old media on a Netbackup 4.5 server

[Brian_Sebby]

I administer a NetBackup 4.5 server and am having problems with commands like bpmedialist and available_media hanging. From what I can tell, the problem is that it is trying to get information about media from an old media server that no longer exists.

I'm afraid we may not have decomissioned it entirely properly, and there are still a lot of media in our Netbackup system that refer to that media server. The problem is that that media server was LTO2, and we currently only have SDLT drives attached to NetBackup, so I can't move the tapes. In addition, the media database has also been wiped out on the old media server, so I don't have a way of getting information from it.

I've tried using bpexpdate, but that gives me the error "requested media id was not found in NB media database and/or MM volume database". I can't give it the old media server name since it's not running the media server processes any more. When I try to delete the tapes from the NetBackup GUI, it tells me it can't delete assigned media. I tried setting the expiration date to a date in the past, but that didn't seem to do anything.

What can I do to correct the state of my server?

[Chia_Tan_Beng]

Does bpmedia -movedb -m -newserver -oldserver works?

[Stumpr2]

How to manually remove a tape completely from NetBackup/Media Manager
http://support.veritas.com/docs/208420

[Brian_Sebby]

Thanks for the information. That gave me a little more data, but unfortunately, I still can't remove the tapes.

When I try to use the bpexpdate command, it just hangs - I assume it's trying to contact the original media server. When I use the -host option to give it the name of the master server, I get the following message:

requested media id was not found in NB media database and/or MM volume database

I also tried the vmquery and vmdelete commands. While vmquery does find the tape, when I tried to use vmdelete or vmquery -deassignbyid, it gave the following messages:

# ./vmdelete -m G791L2
cannot delete assigned volume (92)

# ./vmquery -deassignbyid G791L2 OffsiteArchivePool 0
Could not deassign media ID G791L2: volume is not in the None pool (94)

I tried using the bpmedia -movedb command to move the tape to the master server, but that didn't work either - it just hung. I would try to move the volume to the None pool, but it doesn't give me that option when I try to move it in the GUI - is there a way to do it on the command line?

Thanks for the answers so far, though, at least I think I'm *moving* in the right direction. :)

[Chia_Tan_Beng]

Brian,

Can provide the output of a "vmquery -m " and "bpmedialist -L -m ?

Are those media that belonged to the old media server mend to be discarded? Do you still have the phycial media that belongs to the old media server? If yes, can you try puting one of it to an existing library, do a inventory robot from the admin GUI and deassign it (from volDB) using vmquery -deassignbyid.

[Stumpr2]

Brian,

># ./vmquery -deassignbyid G791L2 OffsiteArchivePool 0
>Could not deassign media ID G791L2: volume is not in the None pool (94)

Please read:
Media Manager error 94: "Volume not in specified pool" - scenarios and solutions
http://support.veritas.com/docs/247898

[Brian_Sebby]

# ./volmgr/bin/vmquery -m G791L2
================================================================================
media ID: G791L2
media type: 1/2" cartridge tape 2 (14)
barcode: NPG791L2
media description: Added by Media Manager
volume pool: OffsiteArchivePool (7)
robot type: NONE - Not Robotic (0)
volume group: ---
vault name: Vault1
vault sent date: Mon Aug 01 10:27:24 2005
vault return date: ---
vault slot: 58
vault session id: 293
created: Thu Feb 03 17:46:47 2005
assigned: Sun Jul 31 16:46:26 2005
last mounted: Thu Sep 15 13:16:20 2005
first mount: Mon Feb 07 07:10:05 2005
expiration date: Mon May 16 15:49:08 2005
number of mounts: 23
max mounts allowed: ---
status: 0x0
================================================================================

The bpmedialist command hangs.

The early expiration date was when I tried to use the GUI to set the expiration date to a previous time.

The tapes and old media server are not available. They have been repurposed for a new backup product that we are migrating to; our remaining NetBackup tapes are for systems that are not compatible with the new system.

I'm about to the point where I just want to reinstall NetBackup to remove these old tapes - there's no way for me to get at them right now, and none of the commands seem to help.

I just wish there was some command to tell NetBackup "these tapes aren't available, and I can't move them into another pool. Just kill them."

[Chia_Tan_Beng]

Are you able to perform the following without any error?

vmquery -deassignbyid NPG791L2 7 0x0

[Brian_Sebby]

> Are you able to perform the following without any error?
>
> vmquery -deassignbyid NPG791L2 7 0x0

This command executes, but it gives the following message:

================================================================================
CAUTION: The act of unassigning volumes may lead to inconsistencies
between the application media database and volume database,
leading to the possibility for data loss. You must expire the
media from an application interface.

The command didn't seem to actually deassign the media. Using the "expire" time in the GUI didn't seem to do anything, and using bpexpdate hangs. Is there a way to force the -deassignbyid command?

[Stumpr2]

Brian,

># ./vmquery -deassignbyid G791L2 OffsiteArchivePool 0
>Could not deassign media ID G791L2: volume is not in the None pool (94)

Please read:
Media Manager error 94: "Volume not in specified pool" - scenarios and solutions
http://support.veritas.com/docs/247898

Did you follow my earlier suggestion?
I know the technote is quite lengthy, but I am confident that if you follow thru with it that you will be able to fix your problems. I have used this in the past to fix problems similiar to yours.

[Brian_Sebby]

Thanks, Bob and Chia!

Between some combination of setting expiration dates in the GUI, running the vmquery -deassignbyid command, and the vmchange command from the Veritas doc (I had overlooked that earlier), I finally managed to get the tapes in the None pool and delete them.

I appreciate all the help in getting this sorted out.