Where is "Client Attributes" data stored in a Windows Environment

[George_Reimer]

I have discovered that the "servers" list, accessed in the NB Admin GUI via

[Host Properties] -> [Master Servers] -> [Rt/click server name] -> [Properties] -> [Servers]

is stored in the Registry Entry HKLM:\software\VERITAS\NetBackup\CurrentVersion\Config\Server ,

but does anybody know where the "Client Attributes" data accessed via

[Host Properties] -> [Master Servers] -> [Rt/click server name] -> [Properties] -> [Client Attributes]

is stored, and how I might access it via a powershell script? This is on a W2003K master server, NB6.5.5.

[pikachu]

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH32327 - bpclient command

This for example to change from VSP to VSS.

[Marianne]

Full details of bpclient command in NBU Commands Manual: http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH52833

[George_Reimer]

Thank you both for your responses. It seems to me that the behavior of NetBackup, or at least of the Admin GUI, varies significantly between WIndows and Unix environments. Perhaps this is what is confusing me. In the Unix system that I used to administer, only a small number of the active clients would ever appear in the "client attributes" list accessed via:

[Host Properties] -> [Master Servers] -> [Rt/click server name] -> [Properties] -> [Client Attributes]

As best I could tell, a client would not show up in this list unless I explicitly added it to the list.

On the 6.5.5 Windows 2003 Server system which I now administer, the "client attributes" list seems to have ALL of the clients in it. I counted about 615 clients (which was *not* an easy thing to do manually!). That seems to be all of the clients. In

[Policies] -> [Summary of all Policies]

The clients panel on the right-side display says "617 clients, 507 unique clients" (whatever that means). On the other hand, the folder "<install path>\Veritas\NetBackup\db\client" has 667 subdirectories in it. I guess this includes deleted clients? That is also what "bpclient -All -l"  finds.

Now, I have only been her a month. Perhaps my predecessors explicitly added every client into the "client attributes" list? Or perhaps that list is automatically populated with every client in a windows environment, even though that does not happen in Solaris?  I'd appreciate any clarification you can provide.

It would also be nice to know what that "617 clients, 507 unique clients" means.

[pikachu]

[Host Properties] -> [Master Servers] -> [Rt/click server name] -> [Properties] -> [Client Attributes]

As best I could tell, a client would not show up in this list unless I explicitly added it to the list.
 

That is correct!

On the 6.5.5 Windows 2003 Server system which I now administer, the "client attributes" list seems to have ALL of the clients in it. I counted about 615 clients (which was *not* an easy thing to do manually!). That seems to be all of the clients. In

Somebody must have inserted them

Any particular reason why you want to add all the clients to the client list?

[George_Reimer]

>Any particular reason why you want to add all the clients to the client list?

Quite the opposite, this is the situation I walked in on a month ago. The Admin Console hangs for a very long time after I make any change to a client. I'm guessing that this is because it tries to contact each client in the client attributes list, including the ones that aren't there anymore. I'd like to at least clean out the dead ones.

[pikachu]

If they do not need anything specific for example global drive snapshot instead of individual drive snapshot... just remove them out of the list.

[George_Reimer]

I do not know how to determine what specific non-default settings (if any) each of the 615 entries need, save by removing each client one-at-atime (after carefully recording it's settings off-line), seeing if backups fail over some period of time, and either leaving it out or putting it back accordingly. I don't think my superiors will tolerate a bunch for failed backups for this.

It seems that I am back to my original question. How does the Admin GUI know which clients to show and which not to show?? I added my own workstation as a client. It did not appear in the client attribute list (thank goodness). I'm running a full backup of it now. I hope that it will still be out of the client attributes list afterwards. Maybe it's something to do with the contents of the "<installpath>\Veritas\NetBackup\db\client" entry, at least now I'll have one to compare against all the others...

[Marianne]

These particular client settings are stored on the master under <install_path>\VERITAS\netbackup\db\client.

There should be no reason for the master trying to connect to the clients when updating these settings.

I agree - remove all the dead or unnecessary ones...

[J_H_Is_gone]

When you add a server to the client attributes it has a default setting....

So -- and I know this will be tedious -- look at each one and see if anything had been changed from the default setting....

if it is still at default - then I do not know why they would have added it.

[George_Reimer]

These particular client settings are stored on the master under <install_path>\VERITAS\netbackup\db\client.

Now, that is interesting! I thought that each client got a subfolder in that directory as it was created. But there must be some additional checking before an entry is actually displayed in the "client attributes", because I have 667 entries in that folder and only 615 entries in "client attributes".

There should be no reason for the master trying to connect to the clients when updating these settings.

I agree, however the Admin Consoel *does* hang for an inordinately long time when I update client attributes. I wonderwhat is going on, if not that. In a similiar (but separate) manner, the NetBackup Java GUI is useless for looking at the clients via [Host Properties] -> [Clients] (this is different than the 'client attributes' list), because it wants to contact each client before it displays any of them, an insupportable idea with more than a few clients.

When you add a server to the client attributes it has a default setting...So -- and I know this will be tedious -- look at each one and see if anything had been changed from the default setting....

That would be *extremely* tedious to do through the GUI, but OTOH it would make an interesting powershell script. I'd need to compare the <install_path>\VERITAS\netbackup\db\client entries for the newly-added default client to each of the existing ones. Maybe I'll try that...

Thanks everybody for your suggestions & help!

[Mark_Solutions]

If you use the Java Console then this is a known bug:

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH128335&actp=search&viewlocale=en_...

Also - the details of each client attributes are pretty straight forward to work out when you look at the info file

But if you upgrade to V7 these do change so you would need to re-script anything that you do.

I have to say that to have that many entirs is unusual - whay do you need clients in there at all? Generally it would only be for Open File backup issues or if they were behind a firewall that they would even need to be in there.