bpps -x did not showing any output

[tarmizi]

Hi everyone,

Hoping someone would help me here. I am setting up a SAN client on one AIX client, after putting SANCLIENT = 1 inside bp.conf, I stop the netbackup client services and start it again from /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/goodies/netbackup stop and netbackup start. However, after I run ./bpps -x, it did not show any output as is suppose to:

[Sxxxxx]:/usr/openv/netbackup/bin>./bpps -x
[Sxxxxx]:/usr/openv/netbackup/bin>
 

 And run ls -al in /usr/openv/netbackup/bin, I can see that:

-r-xr-xr-x    1 root     bin               0 Mar 31 2015  bpps

May I know, what is happening right here?

Thank you

[ashokvaleti]

Just to confirm netbackup services are active in back end,please try and execute ps -ef|grep netb ..it should give below output

root 7012414 1 0 Feb 25 - 0:40 /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/vnetd -standalone 
root 8126718 1 0 Feb 25 - 0:52 /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/bpcd -standalone 

[Andy_Welburn]

On the 31st March 2015 it looks like someone re-directed the output of some command (possibly bpps itself) to a file called bpps!! i.e. the binary has been overwritten by an empty file.

You will need to find an appropriately levelled replacement binary - maybe another installation at the correct version or maybe you have it backed up?

[Marianne]

Someone ran bpps and send output to bpps. Something like:

./bpps -x > bpps

The way that a redirect works is that the shell first creates an empty file as per ' > bpps'.
Only then does it check what needs to go into the file.
By this time it is too late.

You will need to copy the file from another media server or client with same OS and same NBU version or else extract from installation media somewhere safe (/tmp or other filesystem)

Lesson to be learned from this:

Add all NBU paths to your PATH variable in your .profile.
And to root and all users using NBU.

This will ensure that you can run NBU commands from anywhere.

Also make a habit of sending output to a .out or .txt to /tmp directory. Not current directory. 
e.g.
bpps -x > /tmp/bpps.txt

[sdo]

Here's an example of a .profile file:

stty erase ^H
export TERM=vt100
set -o vi
PS1="`uname -n` $"
PATH=${PATH}:/usr/openv/netbackup/bin
PATH=${PATH}:/usr/openv/netbackup/bin/admincmd
PATH=${PATH}:/usr/openv/netbackup/bin/goodies
PATH=${PATH}:/usr/openv/netbackup/bin/support
PATH=${PATH}:/usr/openv/volmgr/bin
PATH=${PATH}:/usr/local/bin
PATH=${PATH}:/usr/sbin
PATH=${PATH}:/opt/sfw/bin
export PATH

.

And another aspect that you might like to consider implementing, which would allow non-root users to administer NetBackup, is to implement sudoers.  This would allow users to run NetBackup commands, but they would not have privilege to overwrite files owned by other users, i.e. the simply wouldn't be able to accidentally overwrite any NetBackup binaries files.

[tarmizi]

Hello guys,

Thank you for the prompt reply, as for the services, I'm able to grep these:

[Sxxxxx]:/usr/openv/netbackup/bin>ps -ef | grep netb
    root  9764966        1   0 11:18:57      -  0:00 /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/nbftclnt
    root 15925440        1   0 11:18:57      -  0:00 /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/nbdisco
    root 18612244        1   0 11:18:56      -  0:00 /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/bpcd -standalone
    root 20119734 25362522   0 15:32:04  pts/7  0:00 grep netb
    root 29294634        1   0 11:18:56      -  0:00 /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/vnetd -standalone
 

Does this mean that all the necessary serives is running normally? About copying bpps from other machine, is it simply copying over the file?

Thank you

[ashokvaleti]

Yes,this means services are running properly,,,and about copying bpps from other machine,just copy the binary bpps.exe from path /usr/openv/netbacku/bin from any client which is having same netbackup version and OS.

[revarooo]

If you copy using FTP, make sure you are in binary mode before transfering the file.

[Marianne]

Unix binaries do not have .exe extentions.

The bpps file does not have any extention.

Copy from another AIX client or AIX server with same NBU version.
scp will also work. (Used that before when a customer had the same issue).

Check permissions after the copy. Add +x for all users if not present.

[tarmizi]

For this particular AIX client, it was install with 7.6.0.4 but the other AIX 7.6.0.3. Will it work?

Thank you

[sdo]

I doubt it.

If you have the 'kits' for v7.6.0.4 you may be able to expand them, and drill down, and find the "bpps" file that you need.

[Marianne]

I would say there is no harm in trying 7.6.0.3 file. 

If copying this version from another client does not work, then you will need to extract the file from the 7.6.0.4 tarball somewhere else and then copy over.

I would personally try the 7.6.0.3 file from another client first.

Another thought - where are you installing patch updates from?
By copying the patch to each client individually?
Or push-install from the the master server (using update_clients)?

If push-install from master, then the bpps binary will be in the client folder on the master server.

[Will_Restore]

Worst case, echo "ps -ef | grep netb" > bpps