Problem with an old tape from an old storage unit. 1

[RexSti]

This is my current situation. I am new to NetBackup, but I have gone through 5.0 training and all that good stuff, so I know my way around it.

1) Got a restore request, for data that was backed up a year ago.

2) This tape was part of a storage unit that a system of ours used to manage. (when I got hired I figured that there were too many media servers, so I took a few out and spread out the tape drives on the stacker.) The old machine still exists, and the entry for the media server information is still there as well. I had just told NB that there are no drives allocated to this storage unit, and had moved all the classes to using the new storage unit. I figured that whenever I would need to run a restore on an old tape, I could just run a bpmedia -movedb -ev XXXXXX -oldserver XXX -newserver XXX, and it would work. It seems that I am wrong.

3) Tried to run a restore before moving the tapes metadata, got a 5 error, read write error. used bpmedia and moved the meta data from the old storage unit to the new, still got the same error message.

3) Because of the fact that it was a DLT tape (We are currently using SuperDLTs), I tried a UNIX based backup and ran it. Worked fine.

4) Ran bpmedialist -h xxx | grep xxx, found the tape's metadata on the new storage units database. I also tacked FORCE_RESTORE_MEDIA_SERVER = oldserver newserver, onto the new server's bp.conf.

5) At this point I am completely stumped and the user is breathing down my neck, so I figured that I would put the old setup back together. Brining up the new Storage Unit, and connecting a tape drive to the system. Still gave me a 5 error no matter what tape I used. I ran a backup and restore to see if the connection was working, and it is working fine.

So my question is, did I miss a step on moving the metadata? Because the restore untilty can see the information that I need, but I can't seem to restore it at all.

I brought the backup infrastructure back to the way it was, the only difference being that the old server is only on one drive, where it used to be on two, and that this drive was not one of the drives it used before. This is probably my problem and if I cannot figure out what the problem is by tonight I will have to bring this file server down again late tonight and make sure that the configuration is EXACTLY the way it was before. Does the old server need to be connected to the same tape drives that it used to be?

I am running NetMeeting 3.4 Data Center on a solaris 8 master server. The old server is a WinNt Box, and the new server is the master server which also acts as a media server.

Thanks!

-John O'Brien

 

[lenski]

Have you tried running a verify via the catalog window or image report to ensure this is a valid tape? You could also try reimporting the tape. You have to erase the tape entry and import the tape as if it was from a stranger system.

I'm thinking that you are try to run the restore with the the source set to the original server but as that server is no longer a media server then there will be no server to action the tape requests. You could try downing netback on the old server and setting an alternative restore server. I think you would have to stop and start the master to do that.

 

[RexSti]

The master server was never changed. One of the media servers wasn't fast enough to process the tape processes, so I changed that server from being a media server to becoming just a client. All the tapes that had been backed up using that server cannot be restored. Even if I run bpmedia and all that. Is there something else that I am missing?

I am running the reports right now to see what the deal is. But basically what I think is going on is that the old media server isn't allowing the new media server (which is the master server) to restore the tapes.

I have already run a bpmedia -dbmove -ev XXX -oldserver xxx -newserver command and I can see that the tape number has been moved to the new server's database. I didn't know what other way I can verify that this has been moved. Thanks for the input!

-John OBrien

 

[lenski]

The master server is not critical in this instance. But you have a tape in the system which is owned by a media server and when actioning a restore would expect that tape to be managed via the old media server. But that media server does not exist so there is nothing to service calls for it to be loaded, read from, ect. The fact that you have a new media server is also not important. But you have to provide some way for the old tape to be managed by one of the alternate media servers. So you can try to import the tape as if it was from a completely differant system.

 

[RexSti]

The media server is still there. I had brought it back up for the reason of transfering everything over. I am trying to make a duplicate of the tape and making the destination be the new media server.

I never deleted the information about the media server in xbpadm, it has always been there, the only difference was the fact that I had pulled the connection between the media server and the tape drives. I thought that seeing that the media server was still there I could transfer the catalog data from the old media server to the new.

I had done this because I wanted to test the performance of the backups. This change would allow my NT servers to have 5 tape drives instead of just 2. Now that I have tested it, it has helped performance a great deal, but it does not allow me to restore the old tapes. So what I did was I reconnected the old media server back to another tape drive in hopes that it would be able to restore the tape if it had access to a tape drive.

Deleting the image from the catalog and importing the tape will be my last resort. There must be a way to transfer this imgae data over to the new media server, when the old media server still has the data.

Thanks for your time on this lenski and I appreciate the effort.

 

[RexSti]

I am going to try a quick fix to allow my user to stop banging on my door.

I am attempting to duplicate the tape that has the data to another tape that belongs to the new media server's storage unit. The duplication has been running for 10 minutes and it seems to be almost finished. Hopefully I will be able to select the new tape when I try to restore.

 

[sebasg]

Don't know in 3.4, but I did that in 4.5 (Win). Besides adding the line in bp.conf, have you added the master as a "restore failover" for the media? (Hosts, master server, restore failover).

Good luck.
S.

 

[RexSti]

I don't know about that command. I'll look it up and see if it is for 3.4.

Another thing I noticed was that the old media server looks like it was configured so that it was its' own host server. Isn't the host server in 3.4 considered the master server? I also have to do a vmoprcmd -h oldserver, instead of just running a vmoprcmd -h master server to see the old server's drives.

Thanks for the input sebasg, I will look it up.

I am still waiting for this duplication to finish...

-John

 

[RexSti]

I just ran bpconfig and the failover is enabled. So that is not it either.

-John

 

[sakelp]

I had some same problems too.
As sar I can read the tape is DLT and not a SDLT.
If you use SuperDLT tapes they don't always admire a DLT tapes and sometimes doesnt work even with restoring !!

Try with a DLT Drive. I think its hardware! Its not the veritas !

-petros