How to make expired media usable again??

[kacyc]

Hi,

I am fairly new to Veritas Netbackup. I've been pretty much thrown in to learning this software and am not having much luck with the manual to figure out this particular problem I'm having. Some of the backups are not working and I've realized that it's because the media being used by some of these classes is EXPIRED. How can I make these usable again??? Please help! Thanks.

Katherine C.

 

[RockeyReed]

From a command line run the bpexpdate command. This is found in the (UNIX) user/openv/netbackup/bin directory or (NT) installpath\veritas\netbackup\bin directory. The switches are -d 0(zero) -ev <media id> (i.e. bpexpdate -d 0 -ev xyz123 {where xyz123 is the barcode on the expired media})

 

[reinix]

What we do is run an available_media report from the goodies folder and pipe it into a log like this:

available_media >avmediaXX.log
Then we check which media is available by looking into this log.
In order to keep the overview, we then move all available media to the scratch pool. Here is how:
- Open the NetBackup Media and Device Management applet,
- Right clicking on the media
- Select CHANGE
- Select Volume pool - New Pool
- Choose the scratch pool
- Click on ok.
This will allow you to check your available media for the next backups out of one central location.
For us a best practice...
Have fun.

 

[bswip]

If tou send me your e-mail I will send you a scrupt I use (Solaris) that runs twice a week and moves all expired media into the SCRATCH pool.

 

[Knatarajan]

Hello BSWIP,
I had read the question of using the expired media.I would appreciate if u can send me the script for scratching out the expired media.
my email id is <natarajk@asry.net>.

thanks in advance.

with regards,
natarajan

 

[emotief]

bpimport should help you scan in expired data

 

[bswip]

I've sent a copy of both the Unix (Solaris) and Windows versions.

 

[1781]

KATHY EMAIL ME AND I WILL GIVE YOU THE COMMANDS. RICARDO.LOPEZ@CSFBCONNECT.COM I JUST UPGRADED TO 4.5. I AM THE STORAGE ADMIN.

 

[defstar]

THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT:

Is the image expired or the media expired?

There are two types of retention in NetBackup:

Image retention-

This determines how long you will retain the backup image on the tape.

Media (tape) retention-

This determines how long you can use the physical tape in NetBackup.

If you set media retention and the retention expires, NetBackup will never use that media again in its current state. Well, it can use it for restores, but not for backups.

If this is the case, and if you do not need to restore from the tape, I suggest that you delete, relabel, and reintrduce it to NetBackup as a new volume.

Perform the following:

bpexpdate -ev <media_id> -d 0 <-- This is a ZERO

vmquery -deassignbyid <media_id> <pool number> <status>

Delete the volume via the GUI.

Relabel the volume with a new barcode (if you have a reader) or manually relabel the volume using the bplabel command.

Once you have done this, re-inventory the tape and you should be ok.

 

[sentmemail]

defstar, can i contact you via email?
thanks

 

[itgetsmybackup]

Glad I found this thread; I seem to be having problems with MEDIA EXPIRY and need some wise words...
I am seeing the following error in the allogentries report
&quot;media id nnn removed from media manager database (expired)&quot;
and that media is no longer listed in the media list report, but does show in media & device manager as still present in the robot (which it is, of course)

BUT, we don't have any media expiry set. So the question is, is this message tape expiry or image expiry ? If it is tape expiry, why is it happening ? If I look at the media in media & device manager, it shows the following attributes:
maximum mounts: greyed out zero
expiration date: greyed out current date and time
and if I change a media expiration date to never it starts to shows todays date plus one year.

If my media is expiring against my will, what can I do to reuse it ? The created date, incidentally, is about 5 months ago....

Incidentally, when media is AVAILABLE ( I assume this means all image retention has expired) does it need to be pushed back to the scratch pool, or will it be re-used in its current pool ? I assume that moving it to scratch is a matter of efficiency rather than necessity ?

 

[85235]

You may create a script named expire.ksh under /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/admincmd/ as shown below
# !/bin/ksh
if [ $# !=1 ]; then
echo &quot;Usage: $0 <filename>&quot;
exit 1
fi
for i in `cat $1`
do
echo $i
/usr/openv/netbackup/bin/admincmd/bpexpdate -ev $i -d 0 -force
done

#####
Under the same directory create a txt file and input all the tape's bar code that you wanted to expire eg
vi 18FEB2003
AB1234
BD4567
HD8768

####
run the script with your txt file as below
expire.ksh 18FEB2003

Hope it can help you...!!

 

[itgetsmybackup]

If only I were still using unix. Unfortunately we've be GATED !