How to recover a catalog backup from a Standard or Enterprise disk device (including OpenStorage, PureDisk Deduplication Option and AdvancedDisk) with NetBackup 6.5.4 and later releases.

 Issue

How to recover a catalog backup from a Standard or Enterprise disk device (including OpenStorage, PureDisk Deduplication Option and AdvancedDisk) with NetBackup 6.5.4 and later releases.

Solution

With the introduction of NetBackup 6.5.4 it is possible to make catalog backups to Standard and Enterprise disk technologies such as OpenStorage, PureDisk Deduplication Option and AdvancedDisk.  However recovering the catalog from these backups is not as straight forward as it is for tape and BasicDisk catalog backups.  (Note that, as explained in tech note 327439, restrictions apply when recovering from duplicated or replicated backups.)

This article explains the steps involved in the recovery of a catalog backup made to a Standard or Enterprise disk device in the event of the loss of the Master Server and assumes that the catalog backup is restored directly to a Master Server of the same name and platform as the original Master Server from the original backup (rather than a duplicate copy).

The recovery process requires the user to create an empty EMM database on the Master Server and then configure the Storage Server in that database to have the same attributes as those recorded in the fragment information in the disaster recovery file for the catalog backup.  Matching these pieces of information allows the recovery wizard to locate the catalog backup and restore it.  

Note:  In the interests of simplifying the recovery procedure it is recommended that the catalog backup is made using a separate Media Server and not written to the storage device by the Master Server itself.  The reason for this recommendation is that in the event of a failure of the Master Server the presentation of the storage to the Media Server would be unaffected.

1. If the Master Server has been lost provision a new Master Server and install NetBackup on the new Master Server and ensure that all necessary maintenance packs  and hot fixes are applied to the Master Server.  
2. If just the catalog storage has been lost provision new storage and create a new, empty database using the nbdb_create command.
3. The Media Server that wrote the catalog backup must be added to the domain.
4. The target Storage Server must be created and configured.  

The storage server attributes must match those of the original storage server as documented in the catalog backup's disaster recovery file.   To determine these attributes open the DR file and examine the fragment records as shown in the following example:

# FRAG: c# f# K rem mt den fn id/path host bs off md dwo f_flags f_unused1 exp mpx rl chkpt rsm_nbr seq_no media_subtype keep_date copy_date i_unused1

FRAGMENT 1 -1 38 970 0 39 0 @aaaa8 media01.xyz.com 262144 0 0 -1 0 1;dd;dorna;dd_dp;dv02;0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 0 0 0

FRAGMENT 1 1 2912 0 0 0 0 @aaaa8 media01.xyz.com 262144 0 0 -1 0 1;dd;dorna;dd_dp;dv02;01226440313 0 65537 0 0 0 6 0 225230725 0

The important attributes are held in the media descriptor record which is shown in bold here.  In this example  "dd" is the Storage Server type (in this case a Data Domain OpenStorage device), "dorna" is the Storage Server Name, "dd_dp" is the Disk Pool  and "dv02" is the Disk Volume.   (Note that for AdvancedDisk the media server and storage server have the same name.)

To configure the storage server use the following steps:

1. On UNIX or Linux run:

/usr/openv/netbackup/bin/admincmd/nbdevconfig –creatests –storage_server dorna –media_server media01.xyz.com –st 9 –stype dd

Followed by:

/usr/openv/volmgr/bin/tpconfig –add –storage_server dorna –sts_user_id userid –password pword –stype dd

b. On Windows run:

<install path>\netbackup\bin\admincmd\nbdevconfig –creatests –storage_server dorna –media_server media01.xyz.com –st 9 –stype dd

Followed by:

<install path>\volmgr\bin\tpconfig –add –storage_server dorna –sts_user_id userid –password pword –stype dd

Once the Storage Server is configured it is possible to  recover the entire catalog using bprecover command as described in the NetBackup Troubleshooting Guide.  Note that if disk is used for backup storage you  should always do a full catalog recovery.