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Tracking down media that has already expired

PaulLaVigne
Level 4

I am looking for some ideas on how to track down a recently expired tape.

I have a user who is looking for data that is about 70 days old. Our retention period for this particular server is 60 days, so my current catalog is of no help, and there is nothing lingering in any logs. How can a get a look into any old catalogs, without restoreing the whole catalog? My guess is that I could restore the catalog to a separate server, perhaps?

Thanks

 

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

SymTerry
Level 6
Employee Accredited

Hello,

Yes you will want to do a catalog restore to an alternate server, and run through the process to restore giving you the tape ID's required to restore. The hope is that you have not already written to this tape if it was in the scratch pool. 

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6 REPLIES 6

SymTerry
Level 6
Employee Accredited

Hello,

Yes you will want to do a catalog restore to an alternate server, and run through the process to restore giving you the tape ID's required to restore. The hope is that you have not already written to this tape if it was in the scratch pool. 

mph999
Level 6
Employee Accredited

Maybe another way ... if < 7.5

Browse the catalog tape as a normal backup, just set policy type to nbu-catalog in the BAR gui.

Restore netbackup/db/images/<client> dir to an alternate dir (that bit is really important).

You can then look through the files by using cat_convert -dump <.f file name> - and then the coresponding header file (not ending in .f) wlll give the media id in the FRAG line.

7.5 or above is harder, restore the .f files in the same way (alternate location again) and the NBDB (all files in /usr/openv/netbackup/db/staging).  The DB can then be quired using SQLanywhere if you have it.  Might be possible with dbisqlc (think thats right) that comes with NBU but is a bit fiddly as you need the right sql queies.

 

Marianne
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified

I think I am with Terry on this one - chances are that the tape has been overwritten in the meantime...

If you do go the route of restoring catalog to another server, either set the clock back before you recover the catalog, or add NOexpire touch file in NetBackup\bin folder to prevent image expiration when NBU starts up.

This may be good time to look at retention levels and business requirements... and if all of this is worth the effort if your SLA says 60 days...

PaulLaVigne
Level 4

Thanks for the advice. And yes, you are right, the business requirements are what they are. The issue is certain people rarely feel that business requirements apply to them.

Marianne
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified

Have you been able to find media as per suggestions?

Or decided to explain SLA to the user?

PaulLaVigne
Level 4

Yes, I have what I need. Luckily we met the person halfway, and restored what we could, and they had to recreate the rest.