How to list all the details for Backup Specification defined under Data Protector?

[rakeshjain]

Hi,

I am not much experienced on Data Protector & it was setup by our consultant on our servers & he is no more with us.

We are using HP-UX server as cell manager & many clients (mostly running under Tru64 & Linux). We find strange behaviour on our backups most commonly that cartridges (SDLT)
are declared Poor in quality very frequently & possibly not used by DP again unless formatted. We are formatting these cartridges only after expiry period of the cartrideges. Also, some backups use 1 drive always & some use 2 drives always though we were under impression that all Backup Specifications are identical. I am trying to list all the characterstics for Backup Specifications (for each separatelely) but so far could not find proper omni commands to list full specification Backup Specifications ie all options set through GUI. So far I could find part of specification in datalist for the Backup in

/etc/opt/omni/server/datalist

directory & part of it using

omnimm -media_info MEDIA -detail

command for any MEDIA in media pool associated
with the Backup Specification & Schedule for Backup Specification in

/etc/opt/omni/server/schedules directory.

So far I am unable to find appropriate commands to list options set for devices specified in Backup Specifications.

All the information for a Backup Specification can be collected from GUI but I want to find this using commands if possible.

We are also facing problems in setting size of cartridges (SDLT) in bytes correctly while formatting these. Different cartridges show different sizes. So we need to know the correct procedure for formatting a cartridge to use to its maximum capacity which must be 320 GB for SDLT in compressed mode. May be correct device name must be used on clients, associayed with the physical device for direct backup, to use compression & maximum capacity of cartridge? How to do this?

We need urgent help in solving these mysteries. Kindly suggest if I must send outputs from some commands to analyse & solve these problems.

Thanks to all for help in advance. RAKESH

[Ivan Ferreira · Accepted solution]

To list devices configured use:

omnidownload -list_devices -detail

The way to view all the details for a backup specification is doing what you already did, checking the file in datalists.

When you format a media, ensure that you are using always the same device to format it if you can. It may be that the special file to which is associated the DP device don't have the compression enabled.

You can use the command:

omnimm -reset_poor_medium

To change the status of a media. Do this only if you don't had I/O errors.

[rakeshjain]

Dear Ivan,

Thanks for your very informative reply.

I tried coomand:

omnidownload -list_devices -detail

I am attaching part of output for your reference below:

==============================================================================
NAME "COMPAQ:SDLT320_4_cisdb1n"
DESCRIPTION "Compaq SuperDLT 160/320 GB"
HOST cisdb1n
POLICY SCSI-II
TYPE SuperDLT
POOL "Default SuperDLT"
LIBRARY "HP:ESL E-Series_rpbackup"
DRIVES
"/dev/ntape/tape5"
"4"
LOCKNAME "COMPAQ:SDLT320:MYJ04133J7"
SANSTABLEADDR
DEVSERIAL "MYJ04133J7"

==============================================================================

From this I can not find the properties which are set for device during defining Backup Specification through GUI eg CRC check, Concurrency, Rescan etc.

There are some other properties which can be set for device during Backup Specification eg Media Pool, Use Preferred Multipath Host, Pre-Allocation list & can not see these by above command (though most of these properties are not very important & can be ignored I guess).

There are some options which can be set at filesystem level eg Public, Reporting Level,
Software Compression,Encode,Lock Files During Backup etc. How to list these options set for a Backup Specification.

I will check the "Special Devices" attached with each physical device on various servers & find out their characterstics eg density & compession to solve the mystery of media capacity as indicated by you.

Thanks again for your help.

Best regards, RAKESH

[Ivan Ferreira]

From the output of the command, I can see that is a Tru64 Unix 5.1X. The device name is not using the hardware compression. In "Device and media" context, change the device name to:

/dev/ntape/tape5c

The "c" at the end of the device name enables compression.

[rakeshjain]

Dear Ivan,

Thanks for your reply.

I read man pages on tape on my machine & it mentions that using /dev/tape/tapenc will cause compression but density will be used as set as default on drive but using
/dev/tape/tape_d1 will use highest density with compession. Kindly suggest.

I was looking outputs for while DP backup was running:

ps -ef | grep omni

& found that vbda command was running with
various parameters eg -nocompession etc. So for sure DP programs are running with many options & possibly these are default options as I don't see any options in datalists which have been setup at our site. I will experiment with options on GUI interface & observe what options are set on datalists & displayed by omnidownload command after changing some options on logical devices. BTW, can you please suggest where can I get description of parameters on commands like vbda, bma, cma etc. No man pages are available for these except for uma & these are not described in CLIreferenceguide too.

Thanking you.
Best regards, RAKESH

[rakeshjain]

Still looking for a single command or a set of commands which can list all the options related to a backup specification eg backup options, device options, object options etc.