Backup Central

Hi again,

I'd like to go back to my post yesterday on this subject to see if there are folks out there using this functionality who would be willing to share their typical daily problems. This kind of goes along with the other post from yesterday when Nick brought up the "Teaching Problem Solving" issue. Since I'm what you would call "one of those contractors" now, and even my contacts are half a world away, I will be relied upon to work the other half of the schedule. I'm also asking because I have no experience with this configuration but will soon be involved in troubleshooting problems. While I'm sure I will initially look fairly ignorant on the subject, even though they knew up front my experience, I'd prefer to be proactive and find out as much as possible, from wherever possible, what folks consider to be their daily routine in this area and how they go about locating and fixing problems. I'm also wondering if the problems are the same sort of issues we see
with a single TSM server/library/drive(s) configurations. These won't be all the questions so please add what you wish. As with all IBM publications what I see it the "how to's" related to initializing systems, at least I haven't seen any troubleshooting advice for those who are coming into new situations. Hence the reason I go here.


So here are some of my questions:

1. What are some of the daily issues you see related to the manager/client setup/communication if any and what commands do you run to see if everything 'looks good"?


2. Where do you start if you're running commands to see if things "look good"? From the documentation it looks like they are typically all run from the Library Manager. Is this correct?

3. Are there any configurations to view from the client?

4. What commands do you run to view configurations/errors?
 
5. If you have scripts would you be willing to share them? Would you also be willing to share a snip-it of their output?


6. Are there client logs to check?

7. What commands, if any, might you use on the server logs to locate problems?

8. Since I don't know the environment yet I don't know if scripts are already set up, but I do know that no matter what I've done I've always found someone here who has done it better. This is why I keep my own list of commands and scripts over the years. Unfortunately I have nothing related to this subject since I was never exposed to it.

I would really appreciate any and all information those willing to share have. In the mean time I'll see if I can search old messages for some clues that might get me started.

Thank You all for anything you can provide.
Geoff Gill

Hi Geoff,

are you aware of the new command in 6.3, "perform libaction"? I haven't run it yet, but the help
seems to be saying that if you have san discovery running, then just define the library and then
run the command and it will create all the drives and paths.


I have 2 scripts which run in the library manager to give the status of things.

First, 'qdr'. It selects from the drives and paths table to get the status of each drive.
It also calls a script in the clients to get info about what they are doing with the drives.
Notice that it finds an error, a path is offline (and will be forever, the drive is busted and off
maintenance).

tsm: LIBRARY_MANAGER>run qdr

DRIVE Online? ELEMENT Serial number DEVICE STATUS VOLUME USER
---------- ------- ------- ------------- ---------------- ---------- ------ --------------------------
DRIVE00 NO 500 MXP9A00Q1K /dev/rmt/3mt EMPTY
DRIVE01 YES 501 MXP9C03CFC /dev/rmt/7mt LOADED 004213 TSM_SERVER_2_FOR_DESKTOPS
DRIVE02 NO 502 HUL2L00510 /dev/rmt/4mt EMPTY
DRIVE03 NO 503 MXP6K01S8B /dev/rmt/8mt EMPTY
DRIVE04 YES 504 MXP081372B /dev/rmt/15mt EMPTY
DRIVE05 YES 505 MXP07455EV /dev/rmt/12mt EMPTY
DRIVE06 YES 506 MXP0913CKG /dev/rmt/13mt EMPTY
DRIVE07 NO 507 HU10847L10 /dev/rmt/14mt EMPTY

Paths offline
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Path from server TSM_SERVER_2_FOR_DESKTOPS to drive DRIVE00 is not online
ANR1699I Resolved TSM1 to 4 server(s) - issuing command RUN tapes against server(s).
ANR1687I Output for command 'RUN tapes ' issued against server TSM_SERVER_2_FOR_DESKTOPS follows:

process Tape in use
---------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EXP N Current input volumes: 004213,(2689 Seconds)


Second, 'qlib'. This just lists the counts of tapes and which client server owns them. This is a dual media
setup, lto2 and lto3.

tsm: LIBRARY_MANAGER>run qlib

Free cells
-----------
23

STATUS MEDIATYPE Count of tapes
---------- ----------- --------------
Cleaner 387 2
Private 394 87
Private 417 383
Scratch 394 169
Scratch 417 14

Server name Tapes owned by server
-------------------------------- ---------------------
LIBRARY_MANAGER 4
TSM_SERVER_2_FOR_DESKTOPS 183
TSM_SERVER_FOR_DESKTOPS 58
TSM_SERVER_FOR_SERVERS 225



I am willing to send you the scripts, or put them in a common download site.

Hope this helps,

Bill Colwell
Draper Lab






-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L < at > VM.MARIST.EDU] On Behalf Of Geoff Gill
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2012 11:25 AM
To: ADSM-L < at > VM.MARIST.EDU
Subject: More on Library Manager/Library Client

Hi again,

I'd like to go back to my post yesterday on this subject to see if there are folks out there using this functionality who would be willing to share their typical daily problems. This kind of goes along with the other post from yesterday when Nick brought up the "Teaching Problem Solving" issue. Since I'm what you would call "one of those contractors" now, and even my contacts are half a world away, I will be relied upon to work the other half of the schedule. I'm also asking because I have no experience with this configuration but will soon be involved in troubleshooting problems. While I'm sure I will initially look fairly ignorant on the subject, even though they knew up front my experience, I'd prefer to be proactive and find out as much as possible, from wherever possible, what folks consider to be their daily routine in this area and how they go about locating and fixing problems. I'm also wondering if the problems are the same sort of issues we see
with a single TSM server/library/drive(s) configurations. These won't be all the questions so please add what you wish. As with all IBM publications what I see it the "how to's" related to initializing systems, at least I haven't seen any troubleshooting advice for those who are coming into new situations. Hence the reason I go here.


So here are some of my questions:

1. What are some of the daily issues you see related to the manager/client setup/communication if any and what commands do you run to see if everything 'looks good"?


2. Where do you start if you're running commands to see if things "look good"? From the documentation it looks like they are typically all run from the Library Manager. Is this correct?

3. Are there any configurations to view from the client?

4. What commands do you run to view configurations/errors?
 
5. If you have scripts would you be willing to share them? Would you also be willing to share a snip-it of their output?


6. Are there client logs to check?

7. What commands, if any, might you use on the server logs to locate problems?

8. Since I don't know the environment yet I don't know if scripts are already set up, but I do know that no matter what I've done I've always found someone here who has done it better. This is why I keep my own list of commands and scripts over the years. Unfortunately I have nothing related to this subject since I was never exposed to it.

I would really appreciate any and all information those willing to share have. In the mean time I'll see if I can search old messages for some clues that might get me started.

Thank You all for anything you can provide.
Geoff Gill

Hi, Geoff. This isn't comprehensive, but hopefully it's enough to get you started.

1. What are some of the daily issues you see related to the manager/client setup/communication if any and what commands do you run to see if everything 'looks good"?
Not too many daily issues specific to library sharing. Everything usually just works unless the library manager is down or rmts have shuffled.

2. Where do you start if you're running commands to see if things "look good"? From the documentation it looks like they are typically all run from the Library Manager. Is this correct?
Yes, most checks are run from the libmgr.
Server: q path to make sure paths aren't going offline. You can use your normal library checks that you would perform in an unshared environment. One new detail is you can use "q mount f=d" to see which library clients own which mounts.
Client: q actlog s=mount to make sure you're getting mounts

3. Are there any configurations to view from the client?
Other than the primary library manager name in the library definition, not really. The configurations are all on the libmgr server. From the library client you can check the actlog to see that mounts and processes are succeeding and that sessions are being opened to the libmgr successfully.

5. If you have scripts would you be willing to share them? Would you also be willing to share a snip-it of their output?
This will print some define drive and path statements. You could copy the statements and paste them into dsmamdc. You would run it on the libmgr, then on the libclients. You'd copy the libclient output and paste the "define path" lines into the libmgr dsmadmc.
lsdev -Cc tape | grep Ultrium | awk '{print $1}' | while read RMT ; do
SN=`lscfg -vl $RMT | grep "Serial Number" | sed 's/.*\........//' | sed 's/ *$//'`
DRIVE="drive$SN"
print "define drive lib1 $DRIVE"
print "define path server1 $DRIVE srctype=server autodetect=yes desttype=drive library=lib1 device=/dev/$RMT"
done

This deletes all your rmts and runs cfgmgr. Sometimes it's quicker to blow them away and update your paths.
lsdev -C | grep rmt | awk '{print $1}' | xargs -n1 rmdev -dl
cfgmgr -v

7. What commands, if any, might you use on the server logs to locate problems?
From the server, pretty much your normal actlog monitoring that you used in an unshared environment. From the client, things like "dsmadmc q act search=mount | grep -i -e fail -e error" can be useful. Mount errors can then be backtracked to the library manager actlog.

It's been a while since I did day-to-day admin, so I don't have those scripts anymore. Most of what I do is initial configs, reconfigs, new libraries, special troubleshooting that the customer can't figure out, that kind of thing. Maybe some other folks can chime in on the day-to-day stuff.

Alex

-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L < at > VM.MARIST.EDU] On Behalf Of Geoff Gill
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2012 8:25 AM
To: ADSM-L < at > VM.MARIST.EDU
Subject: [ADSM-L] More on Library Manager/Library Client

Hi again,

I'd like to go back to my post yesterday on this subject to see if there are folks out there using this functionality who would be willing to share their typical daily problems. This kind of goes along with the other post from yesterday when Nick brought up the "Teaching Problem Solving" issue. Since I'm what you would call "one of those contractors" now, and even my contacts are half a world away, I will be relied upon to work the other half of the schedule. I'm also asking because I have no experience with this configuration but will soon be involved in troubleshooting problems. While I'm sure I will initially look fairly ignorant on the subject, even though they knew up front my experience, I'd prefer to be proactive and find out as much as possible, from wherever possible, what folks consider to be their daily routine in this area and how they go about locating and fixing problems. I'm also wondering if the problems are the same sort of issues we see with a single TSM server/library/drive(s) configurations. These won't be all the questions so please add what you wish. As with all IBM publications what I see it the "how to's" related to initializing systems, at least I haven't seen any troubleshooting advice for those who are coming into new situations. Hence the reason I go here.


So here are some of my questions:

1. What are some of the daily issues you see related to the manager/client setup/communication if any and what commands do you run to see if everything 'looks good"?


2. Where do you start if you're running commands to see if things "look good"? From the documentation it looks like they are typically all run from the Library Manager. Is this correct?

3. Are there any configurations to view from the client?

4. What commands do you run to view configurations/errors?
 
5. If you have scripts would you be willing to share them? Would you also be willing to share a snip-it of their output?


6. Are there client logs to check?

7. What commands, if any, might you use on the server logs to locate problems?

8. Since I don't know the environment yet I don't know if scripts are already set up, but I do know that no matter what I've done I've always found someone here who has done it better. This is why I keep my own list of commands and scripts over the years. Unfortunately I have nothing related to this subject since I was never exposed to it.

I would really appreciate any and all information those willing to share have. In the mean time I'll see if I can search old messages for some clues that might get me started.

Thank You all for anything you can provide.
Geoff Gill