Changing OST login information when using dedup appliance in BackupExec

We’ve had this question come up from our customers more than once after new firmware was installed on the dedup appliance, or some other reason BUE and the OST login isn’t working.


The command is spauser.  From the BUE 2010 admin guide page 1589 Symantec Backup Exec Deduplication Option

Changing the password for the logon account for a deduplication storage folder
When you specify a Backup Exec logon account for a deduplication storage folder, an additional user account is created for the deduplication components with the same user name and password. However, if you change the credentials for the

Sharing a deduplication device between multiple media servers
Backup Exec logon account, the credentials for the additional user account are not changed automatically. You must use the spauser.exe utility to update the password for the additional user account. This account is known as the “User 1” account when you use the spauser.exe utility to view a list of user names that are associated with the deduplication storage folder.

To change the password for the logon account for a deduplication storage folder
1 On the Backup Exec Network menu, click Logon Accounts.
2 Select the Backup Exec logon account that you want to change, and then click Edit.
3 Click Change Password. 4 Type the new password. 5 Click OK. 6 At a command prompt, type the following command:
spauser.exe -c -u
The user name is case-sensitive . If you do not know the user name, type the following command to find the user name that is associated with “User 1”:
spauser.exe -l
You will be prompted for the old password and a new password. Be sure that the new password is the same as the password that you used in step 4.
See “About deduplication storage folders” on page 1579.

NetBackup 7.1 NDMP Gotcha

A new feature introduced in NetBackup 7.1 can cause NDMP backup failures. The Append-Only Mode described in this Symantec Tech Note causes the drive to prevent the overwrite of data on a cartridge unless the writing application performs a pre-authorization for the overwrite.  This feature is supported on IBM LTO-5 drives  with LTO-4 or LTO-5 media.  The feature is enabled by default and does not normally cause any issues if all systems accessing the tape device are NetBackup 7.1 Media Servers.

In an NDMP environment, however, the storage device (filer, data mover) writes directly to the tape drives and may not be aware of the pre-authorization requirement.  If these drives are shared between the NDMP device and the Netbackup Media Server, write errors occur, represented by a write protect message issued by the NDMP device.  This has been observed with an EMC VNX array and EMC support was previously unaware of the Append-Mode feature.

The solution to the problem is to disable Append-Only mode by touching the <InstallPath>NetbackupdbconfigDISABLE_APPEND_MODE on the Netbackup Master Server and restarting the NetBackup Services.

Symantec Backup Exec 2010 R2 – Service Pack 1 Released

Symantec has released Service Pack 1 for Backup Exec 2010 R2.

Information and download links:
Backup Exec 2010 R2 revision 4164 Service Pack 1

Release notes for what has been fixed:
http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH147433

There are several fixes related to the Deduplication option and the Virtual Agent (AVVI, VMware) so I’d recommend customers updating asap.

Backup Exec 2010 Customers – Apply Latest Patches!

Several very important patches have been released the last couple of weeks for Backup Exec 2010 (including R2). A lot of these fixes have to do with the deduplication component, Granular Restore Technology (GRT) as well as the Agent for VMware.

You can apply the latest patches by running the Symantec LiveUpdate utility on your Backup Exec Server.

You can also refer to the below TechNotes for a listing of what has been fixed/updated in the last few patches:

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH138749&key=15047&basecat=DOWNLOADS&actp=LIST

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH138226&key=15047&basecat=DOWNLOADS&actp=LIST

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH138851&key=15047&basecat=DOWNLOADS&actp=LIST

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH138225&key=15047&basecat=DOWNLOADS&actp=LIST

 

 

Symantec NetBackup Media Server Encryption Option (MSEO) – Redhat Enterprise 5 Install Fails

Recently I got this message while trying to install the NetBackup MSEO Security Server on a Redhat Enterprise 5 x64 server:

error: Failed dependencies: libXp.so.6 is needed by mseo-server-6.1.3-rhel5.x86_64

After multiple troubleshooting attempts, we finally we able to get past it by performing an install of the “libXp.so.6” 32 bit binary. We already installed the 64 bit binary (as that is what the operating system was) however we would get the same error during installation of MSEO.

We ran:
yum install libXp.so.6

And then the install proceeded!

Symantec Backup Exec 2010 R2 – Latest Info from 2010 Tech Engage Seminar

I was out in Las Vegas last week at the Symantec Worldwide Technical Symposium (WTS) and Partner Tech Engage (PTE).

I attended a Backup Exec 2010 R2 session which they mentioned the following key points that will be beneficial to our customers:

1) When using Backup Exec Deduplication, a rule of 1GB of RAM per 1TB of storage for the deduplication pool is being changed to a new “formula” of 1.5GB of RAM per 1TB of storage for the deduplication pool. They are changing this recommendation due to issues that Symantec Support has seen. We are recommending our customers to increase the RAM on their Backup Exec Media Servers if they fall outside of this recommendation.

2) The instructors of this session acknowledged there are quite a few “hiccups” with the Deduplication option when using Granular Restore Technology (GRT) based backups, even more so when using GRT and VMware vStorage based backups. They said several hotfixes will be released (more than likely in a “pack”) this week (the week of 11/1/10) that will address a lot of these issues. I’ll try to update this blog when those patches are released.

3) A “stream handler” for VMware vStorage backups will be released for Backup Exec when Backup Exec R3 is released, due out the beginning of next year. The stream handler is a feature that can more intelligently look inside the backup stream which will result in better performance and better deduplication rates for those types of backups. Symantec NetBackup already has a VMware aware stream handler built-in, so I was surprised that Backup Exec didn’t.

 

Symantec NetBackup – “File Write Failed”, Status 14, When Updating Master Server Properties

Possible Error – File Write Failed (14)

media_1287522582091.png

If you receive this error when using Windows 2008 or Windows 2008 R2:
Unable to save data on some hosts
An error occured on host <master>. The error is ‘file write failed (14)’.

You are probably experiencing Windows User Account Control (UAC) is not letting NetBackup save its information. The following technote describes how to address this issue, which we have also copied the workaround below.
http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/330378.htm

Overview:
Status 14 (file write failed) occurs when updating host properties on a Windows 2008 Master Server

Workaround:
This has been seen in cases where User Account Control (UAC) is enabled under Control Panel – User Accounts. This causes a logged in Administrator to run all programs with User-Level rights as opposed to Administrator-Level rights unless the user specifically requests to run an application with Administrator rights.

There are three workarounds:
1) If User Account Control is not required, disabling it may allow the host properties update to complete. This can present a risk to the OS and needs to be evaluated by the appropriate Windows Administrator.

2) In the short-term, to avoid this problem, you can manually launch the NetBackup Administration Console with Administrator rights by right-clicking on the icon and selecting "Run as administrator".

3) For long-term use, you can change the short-cut icon to always launch with Administrator rights by right-clicking on it, selecting Properties > Shortcut > Advanced and place a check in the box next to "Run as administrator".

Symantec NetBackup – RDSM has encountered an issue with STS where the server was not found

If you get this error when running jobs with NetBackup 7 with deduplication pools and backups fail with status 213, please see this post on the Symantec Connect forum, which I’ve commented on (I post under “squirrelking” 🙂 )

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/rdsm-has-encountered-issue-sts-where-server-was-not-found

Symantec NetBackup – Quickly Upload NetBackup Logs for Support Cases

Thanks to the original post on Symantec Connect here:
https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/downloads/quickly-upload-netbackup-logs-support-cases

Are you looking for an easier way to get logs uploaded so you can get your issue resolved as fast as possible? We understand that transferring logs to Technical Support Engineers has been a customer pain point in the past and we’ve addressed this with a new utility called nbcplogs. Nbcplogs will handle the copying, compression, and transferring of logs – all with one easy command.

Using the Titan ID assigned to your support case run the following commands (we’ll use 123-123-123 in place of the actual one you would get from support):

On UNIX-like systems:
% cd /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/support
% nbcplogs -f 123-123-123

On Windows:
Start->Run->Type “cmd”->Press Enter
C:> cd C:Program FilesVERITASNetBackupbinsupport
C:> nbcplogs -f 123-123-123

It’s just that simple!

That command will gather all log files it can find for the last 24 hours on the system it is run on and FTP them to Technical Support.

Just want a specific time frame? Try this (where -s is the start time and -e is the end time) for January 15th at 11:00 pm to January 16th at 4:00 am:

% nbcplogs -s 01/15/2010-23:00 -e 01/16/2010-04:00 -f 123-123-123

For anyone that wants even more fine tuning, start here:

% nbcplogs –help

So that’s easy, but what logs does it actually get?  Here’s a list:

* NetBackup Legacy Logs
* NetBackup VxUL (Unified) Logs
* NetBackup OpsCenter Logs
* NetBackup Puredisk Logs
* Windows Event Logs (Application, System, Security)
* PBX Logs
* NetBackup Database Logs
* NetBackup Database Error Logs
* NetBackup Database Trylogs
* Vault Session Logs
* Volume Manager Debug Logs
* VxMS Logs

You can get nbcplogs from the following TechNote:
http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/343774.htm