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tape drives are showing AVR on media server, robot control show is showing NO in enabled mode

T_N
Level 6

Hi All;

I have issue with my tape drives, they are showing AVR mode after we upgraded FW on Quantum library. My nbu system is running on cluster (VCS) and vers. 7.7.2. Master servers and media servers are linux servers (redhat). I rebooted media server, removed all drives and ran Configure Storage Device wizard, it showed Robot control & all drives but after that, all drives keep showing AVR mode and robot control show is showing NO in enabled mode. Anyone can help me on it ? Thank you.

3 REPLIES 3

mph999
Level 6
Employee Accredited

There is an issue with the new firmware - it was working before the firmware upgrade, it is not working after the firmware upgrade.  Primarily, you will probably need to work with Quantum.

We state in the hardware compatability guide to use the latest firmware - if this doesn't work we will consult with the vendor, so you will may need to log a call with Veritas as well as Quantum.

However, firmware issues are not usually resolved in 5 minutes, so to get things working, I suspect the fastest way will be to put the firmware back to what it was previously (hence why I say to primarily work with Quantum).

However, a couple of things come to mind, 1/ you could try is to update the Device Mappings - this 'might' help.

https://www.veritas.com/support/en_US/article.100015983

I would reconfigure the devices after updaing the mappings files.

 

(see https://vox.veritas.com/t5/Articles/Quick-Guide-to-Setting-up-logs-in-NetBackup/ta-p/811951 )

Explanation:

NBU is able to configure a drive if it is visable over the SAN/ SCSI connection - it MUST appear in the scan output for the configuration to work.  A drive on it's own, would be 'non robotic' or standalone.

The same goes for a library, NBU can configure a library if it is visable, and shows in scan.

Librarys and drives are seperate - you can have one without the other - it's not common, but you could have say the master server as the robot control host, but itself sees no drives and only the seperate media servers have drives.  NBU tracks serial numbers and can work out the drives are in a robot.

If you look at the scan -changer output from the robot control host, this should show only the library.  You will see, or should see, that the this output lists the drive serial numbers,  This does not mean the servers sees the drives, it means onlty that the library is configured and is aware that it has tape drives inside it.

Example:

 

root@gpk630r2f-18 session-logs-opscenter $ scan -changer
************************************************************
*********************** SDT_CHANGER ************************
************************************************************
------------------------------------------------------------
Device Name : "/dev/sg7"
Passthru Name: "/dev/sg7"
Volume Header: ""
Port: -1; Bus: -1; Target: -1; LUN: -1
Inquiry : "QUANTUM Scalar i40-i80 180G"
Vendor ID : "QUANTUM "
Product ID : "Scalar i40-i80 "
Product Rev: "180G"
Serial Number: "QUANTUMD1H0023916_LLA"
WWN : ""
WWN Id Type : 0
Device Identifier: "QUANTUM D1H0023916_LLA "
Device Type : SDT_CHANGER
NetBackup Robot Type: 8
Removable : Yes
Device Supports: SCSI-3
Number of Drives : 2
Number of Slots : 25
Number of Media Access Ports: 20
Drive 1 Serial Number : "C38F11E000"   <<<<<<<<<  DRIVE
Drive 2 Serial Number : "C38F11E004"   <<<<<<<<<  DRIVE
Flags : 0x0
Reason: 0x0

So above is my library from scan output, we see it has two drives.  If the scan -changer output for you does NOT show the drives listed, or the serial numbers are missing then NBU is not able to work out that the tape drives are in the library and hence they appear as stadalone or AVR.

In my working system, NBU knows two drives with the serial numbers show belong in my librray.  If the drives are also configred on the RCH, or a seperate media server NBU spots the serial numbers, and knows the drives are 'robotic'.

AVR happens usually for one of two reasons:

1/  Everything is configured correctly, but connection to the library is lost.

2/  The library is not configured correctly, and scan -changer does NOT show the drives listed.

So, although my first comments are firmware related, and clearly this is the trigger - it might just be the case that the firmware upgrade has wiped out part of the library config - so, check that the scan -changer shows the drives and serial numbers correctly.  If not, you will need Quantum to help configure the drives within the library correctly.

It iis impossible from within NBU to alter what is seen in the scan output - or in other words, if the drives are missing in the scan -chager ouput, or do not show the serial numbers, we cannot fix that, it is a hardware issue.

I suspect, that this will be the problem, if not - then it is more complex and further investigation will be required.

If you need to log a call with Veritas, you will need as a minimum:

scan output from robot control host

nbsu output from robot control host

robots log and messages file with ROBOT_DEBUG in place and VERBOSE in vm.conf 

NBU 7.7.2 is out of support, so you may have to upgrade to 7.7.3 which is the lowest supported version of NBU.

However, as I say, start with scan -changer - if the drives are missing / missing serial numbers than Quantum can resolve this and it should then just be a case of reconfigureing the devices in NBU.

T_N
Level 6

I opened a case to Veritas Support and resolved the issue.

mph999
Level 6
Employee Accredited

That is good news.

Perhaps you could briefly explain the solution if different to something I mentioned which might help others in the future.