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importing old catalogs

Rob74
Level 4

Previously with netbackup 6.5 we had all offline backups, this was discontinued with version 7.

with netbackup version 6.5 we could run the following command to recover the catalog

/usr/openv/netbackup/bin/admincmd/bprecover  -r -dpath <path>

now with netbackup version 7.5.0.3 we are trying to import the old media, this should be a multistage process however all the tapes appear to be failing with error 172.   Are we performing the steps wrong??  This is being tested on a clean server with no image database with a fresh install of 7.5.0.3 and not an upgrade.

admincmd/bpimport -create_db_info -id 1174L3 -server usadmnb01p
Import phase 1 started Mon Jul 16 14:30:48 2012
INF - Create DB information for media id 1174L3.
INF - Initiation of bptm process to phase 1 import media id 1174L3 was successful.
INF - Status = cannot read media header, may not be NetBackup media or is corrupted.

INF - Consult the Activity Monitor for more information about this job.

 

Thanks

27 REPLIES 27

Marianne
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified

removing the ability to recover that data is the problem I have

Solution: 

Start importing tapes with recovery requirement of more than 1 year. Manually set correct expiration date / retention level.

No need to do all 40 at once - 4 or 5 per day will have all tapes imported in less than 2 weeks.

Problem solved.

 

PS:  Symantec cannot be held responsible for bad/incorrect design.
You can be the hero by summarizing suggestions made in this post and submit to management to resolve this issue.

mph999
Level 6
Employee Accredited

Problem with this Marianne, is I think there is not enough space to import all the tapes.

What you could do, is import thae tapes as Marianne has suggested, and then, before the disk fills up, archive the catalog.

This copies the .f files (the big bits) to tape and then deletes them.

I do appreciate this is not down to you, I do not wish to cause any offence if you thought I meant that.

As Marianne highlighted, NBU is working as designed.  NBU was NOT designed to be used in this manner, which is why is has 'let you down'.  I am truely sorry about that, but if it was used as designed, you would not have this issue.

The solution is very very simple, add more disk space.

Martin

Rob74
Level 4

This is a fail on Symantec's behalf.  Netbackup Enteprise isn't shareware, we pay lics and support costs.  I understand that offline catalogs were removed from Netbackup, but there is such a thing as "backward compatability" for invenstment protection that should have been taken into consideration.  E.g., we can't create offline catalog's but we can still read/recover them.

For example, I have an LTO-4 drive with backward read/write compatibility to LTO-3 media and backward..wait for it... READ compatibility to LTO-2 media.

/thread

Will_Restore
Level 6

what you are doing is not really a supported process, it's a kludge

 

One used to be able play other tricks with NetBackup and those "back door" features went away too but the product is much more stable today with all the improvements. 

 

mph999
Level 6
Employee Accredited

I think we are at the end of the road here.

There is no failure on Symantecs part, simply beacuse you are not meant to be doing what you are doing.

The admin guides shows methods to protect the catalog and ways to cope with a large catalog, compression and archiving.  If someone chooses to ignore the guide and use a manual method, then they leave themselves open to a problem.

Symatec reserves the right to make changes, and these were fully documented.

(I appreciate as before, it is not you personally).

As you look around the forum, you will see me going on and on about doing things that are 'supported' and not taking shortcuts, this is why - a change in NBU has caused you a problem.

The best we can do, is suggest ways to wrok around this, you could simply archive the catalog as you import the tapes, that is one way.   You could add disk space and import the tapes, that is another way.

I have highlightened the dangers of the situation you have, with all the best intentions, people make mistakes, and your procedure leaves you open to that, and would be a very serious audit issue.

Marianne (15 odd years experience), wr (many years experience), me (7 odd years experience) are all saying the same thing,  that this is no failure on Symantec part.  It would NOT have caught you out, if you were using it as designed.

I hope that the suggestions we made, will give you some way forward.  It is not a big problem to overcome.

Martin

Rob74
Level 4

Lack of backward compatability is a Symantec design flaw.  Not my design flaw.  I can not predict when Symantec will decide to drop certain features of future releases.  Can you tell me what features are being discontinued in 8.5?

In any case, I am a huge advocate of Netbackup and would never use a different product.  This particular situation is just a minor annoyance that does have some work-arounds.

Thanks for all the help!

Marianne
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified

I don't quite understand what you are trying to say here:

For example, I have an LTO-4 drive with backward read/write compatibility to LTO-3 media and backward..wait for it... READ compatibility to LTO-2 media.

NBU can restore and import backup tapes made with many NBU versions ago (even more than two).

NBU works as intended:

You can restore any unexpired image.
You can import expired images.
If master server is lost, you can recover catalogs from latest catalog backup.

NBU is an Enterprise product that works as documented. 

Again - if your recovery needs are more than 1 year, your retention levels need to match. 

Seems we need to agree to disagree. 
 

Rob74
Level 4

I agree!