> they're at least 6 months old. Anyway, I'm thinking to change the
> retention policy to '6month' so it will match our real practiced policy.
> It looks like I'll have to set this for every client, though, including
> the server.
>
> 1. Can someone step me through the automated command line (nsradmin)
> method to do this for all the clients? I'd like to avoid using the GUI
> for each client -- too slow.

Read the man page for nsradmin.  Take a look at the man pages for the
types you're interested in (like nsr_client in this case).

Then you'd do something like this.  Note that if you do this
interactively, nsradmin will ask for confirmation before every change.
If you do it non-interactively, it will just do it.

# nsradmin
nsradmin> . type: nsr client
nsradmin> update retention policy: 6 months

That's it.  The first line selects all the objects you want (any nsr
client, no other restrictions).  The second line updates the attribute
or attributes you want (the 'retention policy' attribute is mentioned in
the nsr_client man page).

This would do that non-interactively...

printf ". type: nsr client\nupdate retention policy:6 months\n" |
    nsradmin -i -

> 2. Should I reboot the server once completed?

Not necessary.

> 3. Will this change be retroactive, or will it only start from this
> point forward? For example, assuming no dependencies, will a volume or
> saveset from say October 2003 that was previously flagged as
> 'recoverable' now be shown as 'recyclable' or does the countdown begin
> now?

I believe it is retroactive, but you would want to check it.  'nsrim'
with some verbose flags would probably tell you.

> 4. Guess I'll need to be more mindful NOT to leave tapes in the library
> for more than 6 months; otherwise, NetWorker could load them and recycle
> them if they're not write protected, assuming it ran out of available
> tapes. This has never posed a serious risk prior since the policy was 1
> year. There have been some tapes, though, that did sit for 5-6 months,
> long after being full, and were not pulled out of library and
> write-protected until after 6 months and times when we ran out of
> available tapes over weekend and had to add more Monday morning. Would
> not want to come in and discover NetWorker had recycled eligible tapes!

Then maybe you don't want to do this for every client!  Do you really
want a 6 month policy or don't you?  If you do, then recycling after 6
months shouldn't matter, should it?

--
Darren Dunham                                           ddunham AT taos DOT com
Senior Technical Consultant         TAOS            http://www.taos.com/
Got some Dr Pepper?                           San Francisco, CA bay area
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