Slow NetWare backups

[TexExpat]

I am fairly new to NetWorker, and I am trying to add a NetWare server to the clients I am backing up. I am currently working in a test environment prior to using my production NetWorker server to backup production NetWare servers.

The NetWare server seems to be getting backed up, but incredibly slowly. The NT server I am backing up in this same test environment backs up at around 1800 KB/sec, but NetWorker is backing up the NetWare server at only about 128-154 KB/sec. Why am I seeing such a great difference when backing up NetWare? I am using NetWorker 6.1.1 build 238 running on NT4, SP6a. For the client, I am using NetWorker ClientPak 4.2 for NetWare. Is there something else I need to configure for backing up NetWare?

Thank you very much for your help.

 

[itergo]

Hi,

be sure to use the latest NetWare Client, version 4.21 from March this year.
You also can configure the rpcnet.cfg, which is located in sys:\nsr (default directory by installation). Configure as described in the file.
By the way which version of NetWare are you running and which patch level? Which protocol are you using?

Stefan

 

[TexExpat]

Thank you very much for your reply.

I am still having problems, although I found a misconfigured NIC that seems to have accounted for my very slow traffic. My problem now is that the NetWare server seems to lock up after the NetWorker backup job has been running for a while. I will start a new thread about that; I would be grateful if you have any suggestions.

I believe I am using the client 4.21; most of the .NLM files in the SYS:\NSR\BIN folder are dated 3/1/02.

I am running NetWare 5.1 with the latest patch as of a couple of months ago (patch level 3, I believe). I am using TCP/IP as my only protocol.

I reconfigured the rpcnet.cfg file to move the tcp line to the top of the uncommented lines. Since I do not use IPX/SPX, should I rem out the lines referring to IPX or SPX? If so, would that also include the line about tispx?

 

[itergo]

The actual patch level for NetWare 5.1 is 5. Be shure to have that patch, because there are fixes for TSA500 inside.
Maybe that will fix your problem.

Stefan

 

[TexExpat]

Thank you! I will download that patch; we are currently at patch level 4.

 

[TexExpat]

Thank you, itergo. I downloaded and installed SP5 on the NetWare server, and the backup completed without hanging.

However, I am still experiencing very slow backup speeds (mostly less than 200 KB/sec), about one-eighth the speed of an NT backup. Any ideas why I would see such slow speeds on backing up NetWare?

Thank you again for your help.

 

[itergo]

Good to hear that that had helped you.
What is about your filetransfer speed, when you copy from a to b? Is that also as slow as a backup?
What are you backing up, many small files?

Regards
Stefan

 

[MadSeason11]

make sure the switch you're using is set to CUT-THRU. i had a similar problem trying to backup a netware server in my test lab and it turned out the switch was set to store and forward.

 

[rgzimmer]

Both the NIC and the switch through which it connectes ( I assume you're switching) must be set to 100/full, though I had a Legato CE tell me they now recommend 100/half, but that just doesn't make sense.

Slow backups may be due to small files. Are you doing an "All" backup or are you defining the save sets? How many files involved and are there a lot of very small ones? I get that performance on a folder with around 200,000 small files, but the rest of the server is fine.

We're on SP3 on our 5.1 servers. We had to install the TSA5UP9 patch to get 4.21 to work correctly.

I back up 70+ GB in less than 2 hours on one of my Novell boxes. It takes some tweaking, but it can be done.

 

[TexExpat]

Thank you very much, itergo, MadSeason11, and rgzimmer, for your advice on this problem.

I am out of the office in training this week, but I will try your suggestions next week and post my results.

Thank you again for your help; I really appreciate it.