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Running Server Commands from an sysadmin workstation

TuxanForLife
Level 3

What is the policy regarding installing server packages on my personal workstation so that I can run information-gathering commands locally?

In other words, I'd like to be able to run reports about the configuration of our policies, status of client backups etc on my local workstation rather than on a master or media server (and publish the results to a webserver on my local workstation).  Since I'm not using backup functionality (not even as a client), do I need to use a license for this?   What package would I need to install to get bppllist, bperror, bpclient, bpemmcmd ...

 

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

Marianne
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified

Install Windows Admin Console on your desktop.

Use the Windows install media, choose server installation, then Windows Admin Console.
No license required.

You will need to add your desktop as SERVER to the master, and ensure successful forward and reverse lookup between desktop and master.

I have installed it on my laptop and added all NBU paths to PATH variable so that I can run any NBU command from anywhere:

 

 
C:\Users\marianne.vandenberg>bppllist -help
bppllist: [<policy name>] [-L|-l|-U] [-verbose] [-allpolicies] [-inventory]
        [-M <master_server,...,master_server>]
        [-hwos]
        [-byclient <client>] [-keyword "keyword phrase"]
 
 
You will need to remember to add -M <master> to all 'bp' commands and -h <master> tp 'vm' commands.
Your 'greps' won't work on Windows, unless you install some 'Unix tools' software.
 
Maybe easiest to use Martin's 'putty' suggestion?
 
 
 
 

View solution in original post

6 REPLIES 6

Will_Restore
Level 6

You should look into OpsCenter which is packaged free with NetBackup.

Dyneshia
Level 6
Employee

It is packaged free however you will need a licese key. 

Here is some documentation on what it can do :

http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC5042

http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC5044

TuxanForLife
Level 3

 

Thank you both.

We HAVE OpsCenter installed and running. But I cannot find the bppllist, bperror, bpclient, bpemmcmd  commands on that box. 
 

(  To be honest, although I said "my workstation", that is where I was intending to install the software that contained these commands or at least the output from them, so my fellow backup ops and my customers can see them.  I guess I have to run them on the master server, manually turn the output into a webpage or run them through html2txt ).


I'm trying to wade through the manual and the cumbersome user interface on OpsCtr. Ugh.  It's so very pretty but so very useless - like a Miss Universe 4th place runner-up.

I hate having to login and wade through OpC every time to get information. I want to export the output to share with customers and fellow backup admins, maybe automate it to run it once a week.

Even worse, OpsCenter hides the detail of what I want to know by displaying the output in a piechart instead of a table or not allowing export or not displaying more than 40 rows at a time or ....

Does anyone know how to dump the SQL queries from one of the canned reports so I can tweak it to display as I wish?  Happily the Java interface shows the commands so I may just run those and dump them to text files, but I'd prefer tabular outputs. 


I know there is a free-form SQL and I'll eventually get to that, but I would be happier if I didn't have to spend two days writing a report to get output that is fairly similar to this, which takes 2 seconds:
/usr/openv/netbackup/bin/admincmd/bppllist  -l -allpolicies  | egrep  "^CLASS|^CLIENT|^POOL|^RES |^INCLUDE"


  -- Ops Center --
C:\>dir /s bppllist.exe
 Volume in drive C has no label.

File Not Found
 

 

mph999
Level 6
Employee Accredited

I'm missing somethng obvious here ...

From my laptop, I use putty to connect to whatever master server - I then can run commands as I wish.  Would this be an acceptable solution for you.

If a media server is defined in the master bp.conf as a server entry, it will have permisions to run any command.  As a media server has all the commands installed, this I guess would work also.

As far as running SQL commands you could use something like SQL Anywhere.  I think this needs a license, but I believe there are alternative freeware apps available that will do similar.

Martin

Marianne
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified

Install Windows Admin Console on your desktop.

Use the Windows install media, choose server installation, then Windows Admin Console.
No license required.

You will need to add your desktop as SERVER to the master, and ensure successful forward and reverse lookup between desktop and master.

I have installed it on my laptop and added all NBU paths to PATH variable so that I can run any NBU command from anywhere:

 

 
C:\Users\marianne.vandenberg>bppllist -help
bppllist: [<policy name>] [-L|-l|-U] [-verbose] [-allpolicies] [-inventory]
        [-M <master_server,...,master_server>]
        [-hwos]
        [-byclient <client>] [-keyword "keyword phrase"]
 
 
You will need to remember to add -M <master> to all 'bp' commands and -h <master> tp 'vm' commands.
Your 'greps' won't work on Windows, unless you install some 'Unix tools' software.
 
Maybe easiest to use Martin's 'putty' suggestion?
 
 
 
 

TuxanForLife
Level 3

Martin - 

  Good point. I DO most of my NBU administration from the master server. In fact, I run these very commands for myself dumping to a text file. But I often get user questions and want to publish the info. ( It's cutting into my websurfing time and we can't have that). 

  Now I'll dump the output to a webpage file, pop on some basic HTML headers, schedule it to run daily and tell users / other admins to RTFM. I'll deal with OpsCenter reports or customized SQL later sometime. 

--- So Basically ---
  c:\dos>  more <  NBUreports.bat

  bppllist --allpolicies | ( something here      >   /inetpub/wwwroot/NetBackupReports/Policies-15Apr13.html

  bpstulist -L  | egrep "^Label:|Unit Type|^Path:|^Host Connection|^Robot Type\/Number|^$" | paste - - - - - > StorageUnits.html


 I'll ask my windows guy for the windows equivalents of grep and sed, else download them from GNU. 

--------------------

 

Marianne -

For the win. Of all people, you understand what I'm looking for - you do the same thing: Windows Admin Console. Thank you. 

> No license required. 
I am enjoying working with NetBackup, and Symantec tech support. Y'all do good work.