Question 1: Why does my DLT tape drive pause when cataloging some tapes?
Answer: The DLT tape drive maintains internal information about the tape on a tape directory track. The directory track is updated before the tape is ejected from the drive. If the drive is powered off without ejecting the tape first, this information is lost. Re-generating the tape directory information takes several hours to complete, which makes it seem like the drive is hung. Allow sufficient time for the operation to complete and then eject the tape. Normal operation will resume after the directory track has been updated.
Question 2: A backup to my DLT tape drive is stuck at 99% complete. What should I do?
Answer: The backup most likely fails to complete because the Eject media after job completes option is selected on tape drives that require you to manually remove the tape (such as Digital Linear Tape (DLT), Linear Tape-Open (LTO), Travan, and On-stream drives). To remedy this situation, either deselects the Eject media... option or using BEUTILITY, you can configure Backup Exec to set automatic responses to the media alert.
Question 3: After I recovered my cluster and all shared disks, the cluster services will not start. Why won’t it start and how can I get it started?
Answer: The cluster service may not start because the disk signature on the Quorum disk is different from the original signature. If you have the Microsoft 2000 Resource Kit use Dumpcfg.exe or Cluster recovery from the Microsoft 2003 Resource Kit to replace the disk. For example, type: dumpcfg.exe /s 12345678 0 Replace 12345678 with the disk signature and replace 0 with the disk number. You can find the disk signature and the disk number in the event log. If you do not have the Microsoft 2000 Resource Kit, you can use -Fixquorum to change the Quorum disk signature.
Question 4: What is the difference between RPO and RTO (from a backup perspective)?
Answer: The recovery point objective (RPO) and the recovery time objective (RTO) are two very specific parameters that are closely associated with recovery. The RTO is how long you can basically go without a specific application. This is often associated with your maximum allowable or maximum tolerable outage. The RTO is really used to dictate your use of replication or backup to tape or disk. That also dictates what you will put together for an infrastructure whether it's a high-availability cluster for seamless failover or something more modest. If your RTO is zero (I cannot go down) then you may opt to have a completely redundant infrastructure with replicated data offsite and so on. If your RTO is 48 hours or 72 hours then maybe tape backup is OK for that specific application. That's the RTO. The RPO is slightly different. This dictates the allowable data loss -- how much data can I afford to lose? In other words, if I do a nightly backup at 7:00 p.m. and my system goes up in flames at 4:00 p.m. the following day, everything that was changed since my last backup is lost. My RPO in this particular context is the previous day's backup. If I'm a company that does online transaction processing -- American Express for example -- well maybe my RPO is down to the last, latest transaction, the latest bits of information that came in. Again, that dictates the kind of data protection solution you want in place. So both of them, RTO and RPO, really influence the kind of redundancy or backup infrastructure you will put together. The tighter the RTO, and the tighter the RPO, the more money you will spend on your infrastructure. Question 5: Difference between NetBackup and Backup exec?
Answer: Backup exec backup data in serial sequence whereas NetBackup does it parallel. NetBackup is truly enterprise level, suitable for 24X7 backup environments, reduced backup window with multiplexing & multistreaming Backup exec does not have multistreaming capabilities.
Question 6: At which location the remote agent installation log can be found in Linux system.
Answer: /var/tmp/vxif/installralus/installralus.log
Question 7: Can Backup Exec backup data to an FTP server/Web server/other online backup service?
Answer: This is not possible at all in versions previous to 12, however Symantec have recently launched the Symantec Protection Network, an online backup service. Currently this is only available in North America. Backup Exec 12 can use SPN as a backup device. If you want to do an online backup of Backup Exec's own backup-to-disk backup you could replicate the .BKF files using something like DFS, Replication Exec, or anything similar.
Question 8: Define steps involved in backing up ISA Server?
Answer: In order to backup the ISA server we have to allow the Backup Exec media server to access it. The Backup Exec Remote Agent must also be installed manually on your ISA server.
• To get ISA able to be browsed and backed up, you need to add some rules to ISA to allow Backup Exec to access it, and to allow it to be browsed from the network. • Create a new protocol in ISA (I called mine Backup Exec). Set the Primary Connections to be TCP ports 10000-10025 Outbound. • Create a rule to allow your newly-created Backup Exec protocol from your Backup Exec media server to your ISA server. • In Backup Exec, go to Tools, Options, Network and Firewall, and select Enable remote agent TCP dynamic port range: 10000 - 10025. • On your ISA server you may have to enable the Firewall Client Install option in System Policy Editor. (Action menu, Edit System Policy, Firewall Client Installation)
Question 9: What do you mean by authoritative and non authoritative restore? And when to perform them?
Answer: If you are restoring Active Directory data, you will generally be restoring it for one of two reasons: • You are restoring an entire domain controller, and you need some Active Directory data for it to start up correctly • You need to restore all or part of your Active Directory data to a prior state, such as if you've accidentally deleted an organizational unit In the second case you need to perform an authoritative restore, in the first a non- authoritative restore is adequate.
When Active Directory starts up it take various steps to ensure that the data it contains is consistent. Normally when a domain controller starts it connects to other domain controllers to ensure that it receives any updates that have occurred in the time the domain controller has been down. In order to do this it must have some Active Directory data to start with, which is why data needs to be restored to a domain controller as part of a disaster recovery.
An authoritative restore allows Active Directory data to be restored, and then have its sequence number incremented, to make it appear to be newer than it actually is. If you perform an authoritative restore on a domain controller then restart it, it will tell other domain controllers that it has the latest updates, and they will replicate data from the restored copy of Active Directory.
So what scenarios require what sort of restore?
• If you have only one domain controller and are performing a disaster recovery on it, there is no need to perform an authoritative restore. There is only one copy of Active Directory data, so no update sequences occur anyway. • If you have more than one domain controller and are performing a disaster recovery on one domain controller, there is no need to perform an authoritative restore. When the restored domain controller restarts it will receive the latest data from another domain controller. • If you have more than one domain controller and are performing a disaster recovery on all your domain controller, there is no need to perform an authoritative restore. When the restored domain controllers restart they will automatically negotiate the latest data. • If you are restoring old Active Directory data and want to revert to the old data, you need to perform an authoritative restore.
Note that you can't perform an authoritative restore using a copy of Active Directory data that is older than your tombstone period. See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/216993 for more information.
Question 10: Steps involved in backing up DFS and FRS server? Answer: Namespace Technologies include DFS Namespace (DFSN) for Microsoft Windows 2003 SP1 and above and DFS for Microsoft Windows 2003. The Namespace Technologies provide a virtual file system view of grouped shared folders from distributed servers.
Replication Technologies include DFS Replication (DFSR) for Microsoft Windows 2003 R2 Server and above, and File Replication Service (FRS) for Microsoft Windows 2003 Server. The Replication Technologies provide scheduled replication, bandwidth throttling, compression, and conflict resolution. The Microsoft DFS Feature requires protection of configuration settings and file system data for which Backup Exec uses different data protection methods. • Standalone DFS or DFSN (Distributed File System Namespace) Technology Configurations are protected by a System State Registry Backup of the server hosting the DFS Root. Domain DFS or DFSN Configurations are protected by a System State Registry Backup of the target system, and an Active Directory Backup of the Domain Controller that hosts the DFS Root. In addition, target shares on remote servers must also be protected by a System State Registry Backup. NOTE: Active Directory Granular Restore Technology [ADRA] cannot be used to restore domain DFS or DFSN configurations. • Distributed File System Namespace (DFSN) Technology Data with configurations that do not use Microsoft Replication Technologies must be protected by performing a File System Volume Backup of the shared data on the target server.
For configurations that use Microsoft Replication Technologies, see the following: • To protect DFSR and FRS Configurations, run a System State Registry and Active Directory backup of the Domain Controller that hosts the replicated data.
IMPORTANT: Active Directory Granular Restore Technology [ADRA] cannot be used to restore DFSR or FRS configurations. • For configurations that use DFSR Data, protect the replicated data by running a Shadow Copy Components Distributed File System Replication Backup of the replicated data on any server that is hosting the replicated data. • For configurations that use FRS, protect the replicated data by running a File System Volume Backup of the replicated data on any server that is hosting the replicated data
Question 11: If I asked you to tell me if a client has NetBackup on it just by using a telnet command what would you do? ANS: Telnet command used to check the bpcd port is running on the client Telnet < host name> bpcd /13782
Question 12: If you wanted to know what IP address NetBackup was using to perform backups what command would you run and where would you run it?
ANS: use bpclntcmd –pn from master server to the client. Bpcover –r < host name>
Question 13: How do you find a disk based image via the command line and then delete it?
Answer : Importing NetBackup disk images using the command line The command line utility bpimport can also be used to import images from a disk storage unit. This will use the "-id" option that was previously used to pass the media ID to use for the import. However, the "-id" option now supports passing either a disk path or a media ID.
To start a phase 1 import from the command line run the command: # cd /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/admincmd # ./bpimport -create_db_info -id
To start a phase 2 import from the command line run the command: # cd /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/admincmd # ./bpimport -id
Once the phase 2 import completes successfully the disk images will be available for restores. Notes
It will not be possible to import disk images from a NetBackup 5.x server into NetBackup 6.0. This is due to a difference in the way disk images are handled in NetBackup 6.0. A phase 1 import of a directory that contains NetBackup 5.x disk images will fail with the message "INF - No importable NetBackup disk images found in path
Imports from a read only filesystem are not supported. Attempts to import from a read only filesystem will result in an "invalid disk header file" error.
Question 14: If you wanted to bypass NetBackup commands and move a tape from slot 1 to drive 3 how would you do that?
ANS: robtest s1 d3