server: Networker 7.0 Build.322 (Network Edition)
hw: linux Red Hat 7.2 (2.4.18-17.7.x) on Dell 2550
NDMP: NetApp 720
I've lamented on the list that I am having problems after upgrading to 7.0
with tapes being marked prematurely full. The tapes were *usually* being
marked full when the backup started and tape loading/motion were involved.
People suggested it was a jukebox sleep problem. Well, I finally have found
the time to look more closely at the problem, ie uninterrupted. The reason
that the tapes are being marked full is that the *previous* backup had
problems. I have a one to one correlation with an NDMP backup failure leading
to a tape being marked full the next time networker attempts to load the tape.
I have savesets with 0 files and 0 MB followed by "normal" backups. Networker
can continue to write to the tape during the same session. I am guessing that
networker is not using mtio commands to position the tape. But, it "gets
confused" about the number of records on the tape and when it does the mtio to
fsf the tape to the end, it gets to the incorrect place and marks the tape
full. I think the tip off is that in 6.X the 0 length savesets are not shown
in the Instances window and there is no indication in the logs that there were
retries unless you carefully read daemon.log, which I had not done (slap).
With NDMP backups, there is repeated instances of the NDMP resources being
printed to the log while the backup is running and this makes it difficult to
read the log daily. OK, it's a pathetic excuse :-)
I don't quite know how to confirm this, but maybe scanner with some debugging
compared to the mminfo -V file number will confirm the problem. I am thinking
that I may have seen this same problem in 6.x but rarely and now with 7.X it
is more of a problem. Either that or for some reason my NetApp is suddenly
more loaded and the backups are failing regularly.
So, I think it is time to open a case with Legato to figure out why this is
happening.
If anyone is interested in hearing more, please contact me off list.
Shelley
--
Shelley L. Shostak, PhD sls AT qstech DOT com
Voice: (408) 574-3389
Lead Unix Administrator Quicksilver Technology
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