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disappearing restores?

dennis_sexton
Level 5
I'm still confused about my "disappearing restores".

I have a policy that has been deactivated. The tapes in the pool
for this policy seem to be expiring, which would normally be
a good thing, but since no more backups are being made I don't
want these tapes to expire. How do I prevent that?

Also, I don't like the results of this command. Is this really telling me
that there are no backups left to duplicate in the entire policy?

##> bpduplicate -PM -policy NetApp -s 01/30/2005 -e 06/30/2005 -M carnival
INF - found no images or media matching the selection criteria

available_media indicates there are 12 tapes in the pool used by
this policy.

thanks in advance
13 REPLIES 13

MayurS
Level 6
What is the retention period you have set for the backups?
What is the copy number of the backup that you want to duplicate?

I would recommend you to use the GUI for duplicating if you are not very comfortable with the CLI

You can use
bpmedia -freeze -m
to prevent a tape from deleting from the Netbackup media database even after the expiration date.
Here is the more information regarding "freeze"

-freeze
Freezes the specified media ID. When an active NetBackup media ID is frozen, NetBackup stops directing backups and archives to the media. All unexpired images on the media continue to be available for restores. NetBackup never deletes a frozen media ID from the NetBackup media catalog, nor is it unassigned in the NetBackup volume pool when it expires.

Similarly you can use "unfreeze"

Stumpr2
Level 6
Mayur,

I might be wrong but, I believe that freezing the tape may cause you to have to do a bpimport of the images that are on the tape when the images expire. True that it doesn't delete the media from the media catalog, but it does allow the image to expire and be removed from the image catalog. Two separate dtatbases. It is also true that the tape will remain in an "assigned" state. That is so that it will not be used for another backup even though all the images on the tape have expired.

A better solution is to use the command bpexpdate to recalculate and change the expiration date.

bpexpdate -recalculate

legal values for sched: 0=full,1=differential incr,2=user,3=arch 4=cumulative incr

MayurS
Level 6
Yes bob you are right about your first point.
I failed to convey the message properly.

What solution dennis applies depends on the retention period he has kept for his backups.

If the backup are expiring even though the backups don't reach expiration then he should freeze the medias that contain backups.

If he has set incorrect retention he will have to recalculate the retention using bpexpdate.

patrickkuah
Level 6
If you backup from a NDMP box, you have to restore to a NDMP box.
So even you have the tapes but no NDMP box, you still unable to perform restoration.
The source and destination must be of the same NAS vendor type.
This is just for your information. :)

patrick ;)

dennis_sexton
Level 5
Thanks for all the answers. I was able to freeze first so that is what I
did. Once frozen, I'm going to have to import the volumes?

I had 4 tapes that were available. My erstwhile instructor told me to
get those moved to a pool that is not in use to save them. Then
import them.

Alas, I'm still confused because I'm not sure the man page is to run
bpimport twice?
once with -create_db_info and then a second time?
Will the second bpimport put the volume back in its original pool?
I ran the bpimport once and the tape status changed to imported.

I really don't understand this piece of the man page:

-policy name
Search for backups to import in the specified pol-
icy. The default is all policies.

I want the tape to go into the correct pool, so I can change retention
to forever.

thanks again

MayurS
Level 6
HI,

Things to consider first.

1) Is this the same master server from which you took the backup
on the tape?
- If i am not wrong (Pl correct me) if the above question's answer is YES; then you will not be able to change the pool.
- If no then then; you better manually add the media to the new master server by specifying the pool by selecting ADD NEW MEDIA.

If the problem lies in the retention then use bpexpdate to recalculate the expiry of the catalog.
If not better freeze it and then duplicate the media images to another tape and remember to set the retention to some apprpriate value.

dennis_sexton
Level 5
This is not a question of introducing tapes to a new master server.
The tapes in question belonged to a pool that was de-activated. Stupidly,
I forgot to set the retention levels to infinity at the time of the de-activation.

Now I realize that the tapes have been "disappearing" by getting old and
being expired. The available_media script showed four tapes as still
in the pool but available. I got some good advice to move them to a new
pool that is not in use.

I ran bpimport -create_db_info -id 000881
available_tapes now gives me the following info about the tape
000881 DLT3 TLD 0 121 - 3 0 IMPORTED

My question is what is my next step?

MayurS
Level 6
Dennis,

If the media contains a valid image it cannot be moved to a new pool.

Next Step ?
1) Recalculate the retension of the image to a new retension period
bpexpdate -recalculate -backupid -ret

2) duplicate the tapes with the retension as infinity

Bob, Patrick correct me if i am wrong.null

Anji_reddy
Level 3
Hi ,
1)Check first In that volume pool media's are showing
none or TLD .
2)if it is showing TLD then
#bpimmedia -U mediaid
Then it list the backupid image details.
3)if you would like to know the image contents use
#bpmedialist -U mcontents -m mediaid
it mounts the media and list the contents.

3)if you want to duplicate this images
use bpduplicate
4)to satisfy restore requests change copy number to
primary
use bpchangeprimary
and restore.

patrickkuah
Level 6
Dennis,

Mayur is right, you can't move a media containing images to a new pool.
Do what Mayur recommended. It should works.

patrick

dennis_sexton
Level 5
ok thanks. I do have one more question though.
Is this what I'm supposed to get? If so how could I possibly
tell if this is what I want to duplicate?

##> bpmedialist -mcontents -m 001255 -U
media id = 001255, allocated 07/11/2005 18:37, retention level = 9

File number 1
Backup id = oddity.stanford.edu_1121132240
Creation date = 07/11/2005 18:37
Expiration date = INFINITY
Retention level = 9
Copy number = 1
Fragment number = 2
Block size (in bytes) = 65536

File number 2
Backup id = runts.stanford.edu_1121134781
Creation date = 07/11/2005 19:19
Expiration date = INFINITY
Retention level = 9
Copy number = 1
Fragment number = 1
Block size (in bytes) = 65536

MayurS
Level 6
Hi,

Since the copy number is COPY1 you should duplicate this copy to COPY2.

Also the Retention level of these images shows as INFINITY
so they should not "disappear". I think thats why your other media images disappeared since there retention were reached.

Cheers !!! :)

patrickkuah
Level 6
Hi,

Try to run "bpcatlist -client ", this command will query the catalog and list all backups.
Hope this helps.

patrick