[Veritas-bu] robot inventory on acsls master w/o drives

Tony and Mike,

An ACS robot definition and dummy drives are not necessary.  ltid does not
need to run on a system that has no real drives.  The same is true for acsd.
vmd does need to run, and can be started independently of ltid.
(/usr/openv/volmgr/bin/vmd on UNIX, or start the NeBackup Volume Manager
service on Windows servers.)

If you want to use robot inventory update, the recommended, automated media
management method, just select an ACS robot on any host that has a valid,
configured drive, and make sure that the GUI is currently managing the
volume database host for the robot.  When vmupdate (which is called by the
user interface) runs, it will connect to the ACS robotic daemon on the host
corresponding to the robot that was selected (in some interfaces, the host
name is prompted), and acsd on that host will communicate with acsssi (UNIX)
or LibAttach (Windows) on the acsd host.  The acsssi/LibAttach component (as
noted in the Media Manager System Administration Guide ACS appendix) will
communicate directly with STK's ACSLS  and get the volume list from the
robot.

Robot inventories with Library Station (mainframe version of ACSLS) are more
complicated, as STK scratch pools must be used because most versions of
Library Station in the field don't allow an application to query all
volumes.  Thus, NetBackup needs to query by STK scratch pools (as configured
in vm.conf entries), then supplement this by validating a list of known
media (those defined in the volume database).  It's like a synthetic robot
inventory.

Tony is right about vmd not being associated with the robotics.

-Chris

-----Original Message-----
From: anthony.guzzi AT storability DOT com
[mailto:anthony.guzzi AT storability DOT com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2002 7:32 PM
To: mike_andres AT cnt DOT com
Cc: veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] robot inventory on acsls master w/o drives


Mike,

  Yes, the host functioning as the volume database host (the master server 
in your case) does not need to have access to tape drives.

   To get what you want, what you need to do is fake the system out and 
make it think it does have a tape drive. This is done by defining a dummy 
tape drive on master server.  To create the dummy tape drive, you'll need 
to use the 'tpconfig' command (not the Java GUI) and you'll need to start 
it with the '-noverify' option (i.e. tell it not to verify if any tape 
devices it is given are valid tape devices).  Then set up 'ltid' to also 
come up in a 'dont verify' mode every time it is started via the script. 
This is done by editing the 'S77netbackup' startup script and adding a 
'-noverify' option to the 'ltid' command.  Remember that if you start LTID 
from the command line, you'll need to specify this options at that time as 
well.  You may need to define a dummy storage unit to go with the dummy 
tape drive, but I'm not sure on this point.

   I may be wrong on this next point (but I don't think I am), but I don't 
believe the volume database host needs to see the robots; it just 
functions as a database server, relying on the various 'vmd' and 
supporting routines on the device host(s) to supply it with the 
information it stores. So once you have the dummy tape device is set up, 
the master server shouldn't need to contact the ACSLS server.  Any of your 
media servers with access to the ACSLS server should be able to provide 
you with the inventory information you need.

Tony Guzzi
Sr. Solutions Engineer, AssuredRestore team
Storability, Inc.

www.storabilility.com
The Leading Provider of Automated Storage Assurance for the Global 
Enterprise


Message: 9
From: Mike Andres <mike_andres AT cnt DOT com>
To: "'Veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu'"
                  <Veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu>
Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 16:44:46 -0600
Subject: [Veritas-bu] robot inventory on acsls master w/o drives

Hi All, 

   Is it possible to make a master server the volume database host of a 
9310
library under acsls control if the master does not have access to any
drives?  Since acsls actually controls the library and the master can talk
to it via the net I would think that it can, but w/o ltid starting I can't
get the acs* processes to start.  Anyone have any ideas/similar configs?

Thanks, 
-mike

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