I thought I would share some experience with the list, since it wasn't
easily acquired.
My Linux of choice is Gentoo. I like it because the Portage system makes
it easy to keep a system up-to-date without having to re-install every
few years, and because it's optimised for any particular platform. It's
also what I want it to be rather than someone else's idea of how I want
to administrate my system. Of course Gentoo is not on EMC/Legato's list
of supported systems, it's just too niche for that. Over the past months
I've been working on getting my Gentoo systems to work well with NetWorker.
(1) Installing packages.
Just running a Gentoo machine as a NetWorker client is relatively
straightforward. All that is necessary is to take the distributed RPM
and extract the files to the correct directory. Although it is possible
to install the RPM software on a Gentoo box, there is no real benefit,
since none of the RPM dependencies will be satisfied so the package
would need to be installed with the --nodeps flag anyway. It is simpler
to convert the RPM to a tarball. This can be done using the rpm2targz
program, if this is not already installed on your gentoo system you can
install it using portage, just run "emerge rpm2targz".
So to install the client you would need to do:
rpm2targz lgtoclnt-7.2.1-1.i686.rpm
cd /
tar zxvf lgtoclnt-7.2.1-1.i686.tar.gz
(2) NetWorker startup script
Installing from a tarball does not install a startup script and even if
it did it would not work with Gentoo. A modified startup script is
required. Create a file called /etc/init.d/networker containing:
#!/sbin/runscript
# description: Legato Networker. A backup and restoration software package.
depend() {
need net
}
start() {
(echo 'starting NetWorker daemons:') > /dev/console
if [ -f /usr/sbin/nsrexecd ]; then
(/usr/sbin/nsrexecd) > /dev/console 2>&1
(echo ' nsrexecd') > /dev/console
fi
if [ -f /usr/sbin/lgtolmd ]; then
(/usr/sbin/lgtolmd -p /nsr/lic -n 1) > /dev/console 2>&1
(echo ' lgtolmd') > /dev/console
fi
if [ -f /usr/sbin/nsrd -a ! -f /usr/sbin/NetWorker.clustersvr ]; then
(/usr/sbin/nsrd) > /dev/console 2>&1
(echo ' nsrd') > /dev/console
fi
}
stop() {
(echo 'stopping NetWorker daemons:') > /dev/console
if [ -f /usr/sbin/nsr_shutdown ]; then
if [ -f /usr/sbin/NetWorker.clustersvr ]; then
(/usr/sbin/nsr_shutdown -c -a -q) > /dev/console 2>&1
(echo ' nsr_shutdown -c -a -q') > /dev/console
else
(/usr/sbin/nsr_shutdown -a -q) > /dev/console 2>&1
(echo ' nsr_shutdown -a -q') > /dev/console
fi
fi
}
and then add it to your default runlevel using:
rc-update add networker default
You also need to create a /nsr/res/servers file, you should always have
a valid (not empty) servers file for security reasons.
(3) Making your Gentoo box a server or storage node.
Making a Gentoo box function as a NetWorker server is simple, just
install extra packages (server and node) in the same way as you
installed the client package. If all you need to do is to backup to
adv_file devices then you have finished. However SCSI tapes with a 2.6
kernel adds a layer of complexity. All the Legato supported Linux
flavours until now have been running on 2.4 kernels - it seems that
commercial users of Linux are reluctant to move to 2.6.
(4) Configure and install a kernel with drivers for your SCSI card(s)
plus support for SCSI tapes (st) and SCSI generic (sg), either compiled
in or as modules. In my case I tried a variety of versions of the kernel
and various versions of the aic7xxx driver for my Adaptec 2944UW card.
There are three versions of the aic7xxx driver to choose from, the new
and the old version in the kernel and the one that can be downloaded
from Adaptec's web site. I found two combinations that worked: a vanilla
2.6.11 kernel with the downloaded aic7xxx driver, and a Gentoo 2.6.15-r1
kernel with the new aic7xxx driver - I chose the latter. However both of
these suffer from occasional delays when running commands such as nsrjb,
sometimes a 3 or 4 minute delay. This is annoying but not a show stopper
in my case as I am using only a small environment (STK9730 with one
DLT7000). I am thinking of trying a different SCSI card but there's not
much choice of HVD SCSI cards on eBay (suggestions appreciated).
(5) Link in libscsi.
If you are using SCSI tapes you will of course have installed the
lgtodrvr package. The missing piece of this installation is to configure
the dynamic linker. Editing /etc/ld.so.conf won't work because this is a
generated file which will be frequently overwritten. I created a file
called /etc/env.d/80networker containing:
LDPATH=/usr/lib/nsr
and then ran ldconfig.
(6) We should be finished. We should have a working system that will
start NetWorker and allow use of SCSI tape drives on boot. The pure
Gentoo approach would be to build the NetWorker packages into portage so
that all the above could be taken care of by running an emerge, but I'm
not sure what the legal position would be.
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