I want to verify that I don’t have to anything at the Windows OS
level to allow NetBackup to use VSS on that client so I’m going to change the
settings on one client and leave them as is on another. What’s the easiest way
to verify that they are both still using VSP?
Thanks,
Randy
From:
veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
[mailto:veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu] On Behalf Of Randy
Samora
Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2008 3:22 PM
To: Rosenkoetter, Gabriel; veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Clarification About Open File Backups
We’re hiring, are you interested J Just kidding but thank you for the response. Over 700 Windows
clients. I’m not about to admit how many of them I have done this to.
Thanks again,
Randy
From: Rosenkoetter,
Gabriel [mailto:Gabriel.Rosenkoetter AT radian DOT biz]
Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2008 3:19 PM
To: Randy Samora; veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
Subject: RE: [Veritas-bu] Clarification About Open File Backups
Wow.
No,
I've never once done that.
It
was my understanding, working strictly from Symantec/Veritas documentation,
that NetBackup went and created its own snapshots as configured in the client
DB section on the master for WOFB purposes and didn't need any client-side
preparation.
It
sounds like what you're doing is configuring (well, "unconfiguring"),
on each of your servers, a scheduled snapshot which can be accessed from that
server should a file be removed or modified. That's all well and good, and that
is a nice feature (present in most modern volume managers; MS is a bit behind the
times on including it), but it's got nothing to do with NetBackup. NetBackup
doesn't care about whatever VSS snapshots you've already got scheduled for
yourself on the host, it creates its own in order to perform WOFBackups by
speaking through an API to the same Service that you're getting to with Windows
Explorer.
There's
nothing wrong with what you're doing, but it's not necessary (unless I'm
grossly mistaken) to make NetBackup's WOFB functionality Go. NBU will go turn
the service on when it needs it for the backup and then back off again when
it's done. I'm pretty sure you can just strike that step of your process off
the list entirely.
--
gabriel rosenkoetter
Radian Group Inc, Unix/Linux/VMware Sysadmin / Backup & Recovery
gabriel.rosenkoetter AT radian DOT biz, 215 231 1556
From: Randy Samora
[mailto:Randy.Samora AT stewart DOT com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2008 4:11 PM
To: Rosenkoetter, Gabriel; veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
Subject: RE: [Veritas-bu] Clarification About Open File Backups
Thank you, thank you, thank you, that is a lot of very
useful insight and I'm glad I finally asked.
One more question for clarification. In reference to "I guess I'm not sure what
you mean by "enable VSS on all volumes of the client". If
that statement isn't obvious, then I'm already beginning to panic thinking I've
done something wrong. I've been buried up to my eyeballs in NetBackup for so
long that my basic Windows skills are just about obsolete. But what I was
referring to is for each client on which I want to use VSS, I go into Windows
Explorer, right click on a volume (Y: drive for example) and I Enable VSS and
then configure the schedule for the shadow copy. In my case, I delete the two
default schedules and I create a "Once" schedule for five years down
the road. By that time the hardware will have been replaced so I don't
have to worry about VSS copies eating up disk space unnecessarily. The
only copies being made are during the backups; or so I assume. Is this not
correct? I thought that by default, VSS was not enabled on a Win2k3
server and had to be manually enabled and then configured for size, schedule
and location of the file. I tried to ask a Symantec Engineer once during
an open ticket for something else but he told me to ask Microsoft.
Is there a better way?
Thanks
randy
-----Original Message-----
From: Rosenkoetter, Gabriel [mailto:Gabriel.Rosenkoetter AT radian DOT biz]
Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2008 2:48 PM
To: Randy Samora; veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
Subject: RE: [Veritas-bu] Clarification About Open File Backups
The following is my understanding, but I don't promise
I'm Right about
it. :^>
At Tuesday, April 08, 2008 10:08 AM, Randy Samora
[mailto:Randy.Samora AT stewart DOT com] wrote:
> 1. If I want to start using VSS on
my old clients, I know I need
> to enable VSS on the client itself but what happens
at the Master?
> Do I check the Open File Backups for that client and
select VSS
> instead of VSP?
I don't believe that there is anything specific one needs
to do on the
client itself. You need to explicitly select VSS instead
of VSP, bearing
in mind that VSP only works with WindowsNET and newer
clients (ie,
versions of Windows that provide the Volume Shadow Copy
Service). In
particular, Win2k does not while Win2k3 does.
I'm not sure what happens if you tell a client that can't
do VSS to do
so... I don't believe that it will fall back to VSP, I
believe that it
will either fail with a 156 or (if so configured in the
client DB)
disable snapshots (and open file backups) and proceed.
> 2. What is the default
behavior? If I deleted all of the clients
> from the Client Attributes tab of the Master Server
properties,
> what would occur on those clients in regards to open
file backups?
The default for all Windows clients is WOFB enabled, use
VSP, fail (with
a 156) if the snapshot fails.
(So, imho, you should have been modifying the client DB
all along to
flip the "if snapshot fails" bit.)
> 3. If I bring a new client on line
with the default install,
> does it do open file backups by default?
Yes, but it will use VSP, which will fail if the client
host hasn't been
rebooted after the client software was installed to
enable the VSP
module.
> It appears that for each client I want to use open
file backups, I
> have to add the client to the Master Server
properties and then
> configure the open file options. That.s easy
to do but I.ve always
> had doubts because it doesn.t seem logical.
It doesn't seem logical because the GUI design is
boneheaded.
What you are really doing with that pointy-clicky bit is
creating (or
modifying, if it already existed) a file whose name
matches the client
under /usr/openv/netbackup/db/client (yes, even under 6.5
where
"everything but images" is supposedly in DB
form). You do the same thing
on the command line with the bpclient command. (Well,
that's what you're
doing on Unix masters. I don't really know (or care,
honestly) where
Windows masters servers store the same data.)
It's in the Master section of the GUI's host properties
because it
modifies settings on the master, which is obviously
backward engineered
thinking, but now that everybody's used to finding it
there, it probably
won't change. The Clients section of that same tree
strictly modifies
settings that are stored on the client host, but these
directives are
something that bpbrm needs to know when it goes and tells
the client to
start generating backup streams, so it's not
configuration that
logically belongs on the client.
> Today, when I add a new client, I enable VSS on all
volumes of the
> client, add the client to the Master Server
properties, Enable Open
> File Backups is checked and I configure the options.
I guess I'm not sure what you mean by "enable VSS on
all volumes of the
client". I don't think I do anything that resembles
that. Are you
talking about the option to perform snapshot backups in
the Policy
configuration? Although that can use VSS or VSP, it's not
the same thing
as WOFB. If not that, where's the configuration you're
describing?
I trust someone will correct me if I'm wrong about any of
the above.
(Except the whole Master host properties thing. That
really is just
stupid. ;^>)
--
gabriel rosenkoetter
Radian Group Inc, Unix/Linux/VMware Sysadmin / Backup
& Recovery
gabriel.rosenkoetter AT radian DOT biz, 215 231 1556