Backup Central

Hi everyone,

I have this customer who is running networker 7.3 on linux. It's old I know. Yesterday it suddenly stopped staging save sets from AFTD to tape and the message "Waiting for 1 writable volumes to backup pool 'Daily' disk(s) or tape(s) on "servername"" appeared.
They have a jukebox with one LTO3 drive attached and 23 slots. Drive is write-enabled.

Now. I have tried several things:
Restarting NW and cleaning out /nsr/tmp while it was down.
Rebooting the server (uptime 176 days, so just to be sure)
mminfo -va on a volume to make sure that it's actually recyclable.
mminfo -q 'volume=000001' -r 'client,ssretent,clretent,savetime,name' to see if any savesets were not expired. they all were.
I manually relabeled 000001 and it didn't help.
00001 is not set to manual recycle and auto media management is on.

The staging is the built-in type, so there are no weird scripts or anything that could cause this.

Any good ideas?

Thanks in advance.

/tony

I just did a nsrjb -lvvv -f /dev/nst0 -S 4 and a nsrmm -m -f /dev/nst0 000001 and it started writing to the tape.

Question now is: Why doesn't it just relabel and mount the tapes automagically?

/tony

Tony,

Do you have the "auto media management" option enabled on your NetWorker server's resource for your tape library? If not, that would explain the behavior you are seeing.

On 01 3, 2012, at 11:42 AM, tonyalbers wrote:

I just did a nsrjb -lvvv -f /dev/nst0 -S 4 and a nsrmm -m -f /dev/nst0 000001 and it started writing to the tape.

Question now is: Why doesn't it just relabel and mount the tapes automagically?

/tony

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Hi Stan,

Yes, auto media management is on.

/tony

Consider the possibility of hardware problem. You didn't get much info on the hardware configuration, but check /var/messages on the NetWorker server for any tell tail errors and see if the NetWorker inquire utility can see the tape library's tape drive and robotic device.

On 01 3, 2012, at 11:05 AM, tonyalbers wrote:

Hi everyone,

I have this customer who is running networker 7.3 on linux. It's old I know. Yesterday it suddenly stopped staging save sets from AFTD to tape and the message "Waiting for 1 writable volumes to backup pool 'Daily' disk(s) or tape(s) on "servername"" appeared.
They have a jukebox with one LTO3 drive attached and 23 slots. Drive is write-enabled.

Now. I have tried several things:
Restarting NW and cleaning out /nsr/tmp while it was down.
Rebooting the server (uptime 176 days, so just to be sure)
mminfo -va on a volume to make sure that it's actually recyclable.
mminfo -q 'volume=000001' -r 'client,ssretent,clretent,savetime,name' to see if any savesets were not expired. they all were.
I manually relabeled 000001 and it didn't help.
00001 is not set to manual recycle and auto media management is on.

The staging is the built-in type, so there are no weird scripts or anything that could cause this.

Any good ideas?

Thanks in advance.

/tony

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|Forward SPAM to abuse < at > backupcentral.com.
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On 03/01/12 16:55, tonyalbers wrote:
Hi Stan,

Yes, auto media management is on.


Auto media management does not apply to recyclable tapes, only blank ones.


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From the commands you used it is not assuming it to be a tape library but rather a stand alone drive.

can you check the pool configuration -> Selection Criteria -> Target Media -> Volume Type preference. If this is not blank and a media type is selected then select a blank and try again.

Rovin A. D'Souza
rovinabi < at > gmail.com


-----Original Message-----
From: EMC NetWorker discussion [mailto:NETWORKER < at > LISTSERV.TEMPLE.EDU] On Behalf Of tonyalbers
Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2012 10:26 PM
To: NETWORKER < at > LISTSERV.TEMPLE.EDU
Subject: [Networker] Server not using recyclable tapes. Not even after a relabel.

Hi Stan,

Yes, auto media management is on.

/tony

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Auto Media Management applies to both blank ones as well as the recyclable tapes.

Rovin A. D'Souza
rovinabi < at > gmail.com


-----Original Message-----
From: EMC NetWorker discussion [mailto:NETWORKER < at > LISTSERV.TEMPLE.EDU] On Behalf Of Davina Treiber
Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2012 10:35 PM
To: NETWORKER < at > LISTSERV.TEMPLE.EDU
Subject: Re: [Networker] Server not using recyclable tapes. Not even after a relabel.

On 03/01/12 16:55, tonyalbers wrote:
Hi Stan,

Yes, auto media management is on.


Auto media management does not apply to recyclable tapes, only blank ones.


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On 03/01/12 17:12, Dsouza, Rovinabishek wrote:
Auto Media Management applies to both blank ones as well as the recyclable tapes.

Not true. Tapes in a jukebox will automatically recycle to the same pool
even without AMM set. They will also recycle to other pools if the
"recycle to other pools" and "recycle from other pools" are set for the
correct NSR pool resource.

This is a common misunderstanding. AMM for a jukebox only applies to
blank tapes. AMM for a standalone device is slightly different.


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Nice, dint know that nor had bothered to understand it. Now that you bought it up I tested it and Yes, You are right... Thank You.

Rovin A. D'Souza
rovinabi < at > gmail.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Davina Treiber [mailto:Davina.Treiber < at > PeeVRo.co.uk]
Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2012 11:07 PM
To: EMC NetWorker discussion; Dsouza, Rovinabishek
Subject: Re: [Networker] Server not using recyclable tapes. Not even after a relabel.

On 03/01/12 17:12, Dsouza, Rovinabishek wrote:
Auto Media Management applies to both blank ones as well as the recyclable tapes.

Not true. Tapes in a jukebox will automatically recycle to the same pool
even without AMM set. They will also recycle to other pools if the
"recycle to other pools" and "recycle from other pools" are set for the
correct NSR pool resource.

This is a common misunderstanding. AMM for a jukebox only applies to
blank tapes. AMM for a standalone device is slightly different.


via RSS at http://listserv.temple.edu/cgi-bin/wa?RSS&L=NETWORKER

I got it to work again yesterday. I don't know exactly what helped, I cleaned out the AFTD and did a lot of nsrim -X and nsrck checks with networker restarts. Finally I got nsrjb to relabel a tape and suddenly NW would again use available tapes. I guess it just needed some TLC.
Question now is: Will it survive this weeks weekly backup scheduled to run friday night... Let's see.

Thanks for all your suggestions and help.

/tony