Understanding NBSTLUTIL command results

[CadenL]

Hi

I’m having trouble trying to reconcile the results of some nbstlutil commands to better understand a backlog of images that are part of an SLP.

My scenario is as follows NetBackup Master\media Appliance backs up our NBU clients to MSDP. This is then duplicated to an offsite media server’s MSDP which has a locally attached tape library and so the image is then duplicated to tape for long term retention.

The offsite media server MSDP has limited capacity and so the SLP is configured to expire the MSDP image once the image as duplicated to tape.

What I’m seeing is a build-up of images on the media server MSDP which I assume indicates that these images are not being duplicated to tape as otherwise they would have expired. The MSDP on the media server fills up and so new images can be duplicated across from the Master\media server

I’m working on the basis that: 

• Initial backup on the Appliance is Copy 1
• Duplicated image to offsite media server is Copy 2
• Duplicated image to tape is Copy 3

 I want to see all the images on the offsite media server from before 27th Dec 2017 and my understanding is that any results returned would not have be written to tape as if they were on tape they should have be expired from the MSDP already.

To achieve this I ran a catalog verify from the java console setting the parameters to show copy 2 for the media server with an end date of six weeks ago. This returns several thousand entries and shows me the backup ids of these images.

 If ALL backups write to the same SLP can I be confident these images have not been written to tape?

Should I run a catalog verify for all copy 3 images (which are on tape media) and confirm there are no matching backup id’s?

 I don’t know why there backup images are not being written to tape so I run an nbstlutil command to show me all images that have a destination of the tape library using:

 nbstlutil list -destination <tape library> -before 12/27/201700:00:00 -copy_incomplete

 Does the above command look correct to show me the images that are on the media server MSDP and will be duplicated to tape?

My main uncertainty with the above command is that, although it returns hundreds of images I don’t see any backup id’s that match those from my copy 2 catalog query. Shouldn’t a backup id that is returned by the nbstlutil command above also appear in the catalog query I run to show me copy 2 images that are before 27th Dec2017 – as I would have thought these images would be the ones that are copy_incomplete for the tape library destination.

Thanks in advance

[Amol_Nair]

command looks good with the exclusion of the slp name.. add -lifecycle <slp_name> to the command to ensure you are retrieving the results for the correct slp in case there are multiple slps configured to use the same tape library..

Apart from that a generic command below can give you an overview of the slp backlog
“nbstlutil report”

Apart from that “nbstlutil stlilist -lifecycle <slp_name> -image_incomplete -U”
can be used to pull up the complete list of pending slp images. The list would be in a sorted order so you can easily go through them and identify the images older than a specific date..

Lastly in regards to msdp not freeing up space do remember that msdp only saves pointers or changed blocks to save storage so if you backup the same image daily and the previous one is expired it will not free up space

example:
monday. >> backup folder (1tb)
tue >> backup same folder again (1tb)

image saved on madp storage would be less than 1TB..

when monday’s image is duplicated and expired if you expect to see 1TB free on msdp that would not be possible.. because tuesday’s image still refers to the same blocks..

[Amol_Nair · Accepted solution]

Came across this as well which could be helpful with the slp backup.. take a peek at it

https://vox.veritas.com/t5/Articles/Netbackup-SLP-Backlog-Report-and-Troubleshooting/ta-p/810343