About 3 weeks ago we implimented encryption on our daily backups using the native OpenVMS Encryption option (OpenVMS V8.3-1H1).
The backup job in question run nightly after quiesing our app (so all files are closed). The job creates 8 savesets. At the time that the savesets are created, each has a "check file" included, this is used for verification. When the Backup is finished, the Verification job is started, and it opens each saveset and extracts the check file. This is basically to verify that the saveset is readable.
The backup and verify jobs have been running fine, and unchanged, since we implimented the encryption, that is until Tuesday night.
On Tuesday night, the backup job ran fine, gave no errors either in the code, or on the tapedrives. When the subsequent verify job executed, it ran fine for the first 4 savesets (extracting the check file as it should). On the 5th saveset it returned the following error,
%BACKUP-F-ENCBSRNOT, internal error. Backup Summary Record required for decryption not found
The job then blew off. After manually checking, savesets 6, 7 & 8 were fine, so the problem seemed to be only with saveset 5.
Note: The scripts had run fine up to this time, and ran fine last night.
The help for this message says;
ENCBSRNOT, internal error. BACKUP Summary, Record required for
decryption not found
Facility: BACKUP, BACKUP/ENCRYPT Command
Explanation: The BACKUP Summary Record that contains the data key under
which the save set is encrypted was not found at the start
of the save set. It is possible that the save set was not
encrypted.
User Action: None. The save set is probably corrupted and cannot be
restored. If the save set was in fact not encrypted, it can
be recovered by omitting the /ENCRYPT qualifier.
When I checked to see if the saveset was in fact encrypted, backup told me that it was, and that I had to use the /Encrypt qualifier.
I tried accessing the saveset manually, i.e. from an interactive session, using Backup/list and the full backup restore command, both with the /encrypt=... qualifier include and excluded. With it included I got the same error as above. With it excluded I got the appropriate "This is an encrypted saveset.." message.
I am concerned that there was no indication in the original Backup Script that this saveset was both corrupted and unrecoverable. If I had not had my verification job in place I would have had no indication that the saveset was bad, and would have happily sent the tape offsite thinking it was a valid backup.
I have attached both the backup command, and the verification command. However keep in mind that these scripts are not inherently bad, having been use consistently and successfully since encryption was implemented, including last night.
I have reported this event to HP but I was interested if anyone had seen this before and could shed light on possible causes.
thanks \
Dave.
