"Invalid error number"; for Media server but not client?

[Encrypted]

Hi all,

I have a VMware guest that is set up as a Media server.  Both master and client are on 6.5.1.a

Master is Solaris 10, Media is Win 2003 SP2 with latest updates.

From the master I can choose "Host Properties > Clients" and see this server as a client.  However, if I try to connect to it under the "Media Servers" portion of host properties, I see the error "Invalid Error Number".  I did some research on this (incredibly vague) error and found this KB article:

http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/265418.htm

None of that applies here, I checked everything in this article and it all checks out.  In fact, I can back up this system as a client, it just seems like the Master does not want to see it as a media server.  To be safe I uninstalled  Netbackup from the Media server and reinstalled everything, making sure to put in the Media server key to specify it as such.

Is there something else I am missing here? 

[Encrypted]

Does anyone have any ideas? I am at a loss here. 

[Patrick_Whelan_]

There have been several threads both here and on the Aubur mailing list stating that VM media servers are not supported. Master servers appear to be questionalble, but definately NOT media servers.

[Encrypted]

Yea I know all about the standard cop-out,  er - disclaimer.  

Unsupported doesn't always mean "No way this will work".  And I would be surprised to find out that I am the first person to ever try this. 

Carp...getting physical test boxes is always a pain when the standard response is always "Can't you just use a VM?"

[Patrick_Whelan_]

I gather from the afore mentioned lists that others have tried and that is why it is not supported. It just doesn't work. It is my understanding the VMware has problems working with tape drives, regardless of the application, but I haven't tried it myself. If this is a UNIX guest, does it see the tape drives and can you do an mt -t /dev/rmt/xxxx status?

[Encrypted]

Actually there are no tape drives at all in this setup: it's all disk based storage.  The media server is backing up data just fine to disk groups, in fact every other aspect of this server is functioning just as well as a physical media server does.

It's just the VCB component that is giving me fits.

[bhawver]

Not sure if anyone came up with a solution or if this is the same problem that I experienced.  I found that if I add whatever the host name of the machine running the NetBackup Administration Console to the "Additional Servers", I am able to do the properties and the "Invalid Error Number" goes away.

Just posting this in case someone else having the same problem stumbles on to the post like I did. 

[F_J]

For any machine running the Admin Console to be able to connect to any NetBackup machine (master server, media server or client) to see host properties, the Admin Console machine has to be in the server list. The master server name is actually the first name in the list by default, that's why those using the admin console on the master server would not normally experience this issue.