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  1. Home
  2. NetBackup™ NAS Administrator's Guide
  3. Section III. Using NDMP
  4. NAS appliance information for NDMP
  5. Vendor-specific information
  6. NetApp
NetBackup™ NAS Administrator's Guide

NetApp

General Information

This information is provided to help you use NetBackup for NDMP with a NetApp Network Attached Storage (NAS) filer.

For further details, refer to the following documentation or contact NetApp.

  • Data ONTAP Command Reference Guide

  • Data ONTAP System Administrator's Guide

  • Models

  • Documentation

Device configuration

Tips for control and configuration

  • For NDMP devices to share tape drives, tape reservation must be enabled in the ONTAP software on the filer and on NetBackup. You can use either SCSI persistent reservation or SCSI reservation. If you want to share tape drives, note that the drive itself must support one of these types of reservation. To enable SCSI reservation in Data ONTAP, enter either of the following at the ONTAP command line on the filer:

    options tape.reservations scsi
    options tape.reservations persistent

    To enable the SCSI reservation in the NetBackup web UI, open Hosts > Host properties. Select the media server and click Edit media server. Then click Media servers. Ensure that you select the same type of SCSI reservation as you set on the filer.

  • In ONTAP 8.0, both ONTAP 7 mode and ONTAP 10 mode are combined into a single release. You cannot run both modes on the same filer concurrently.

  • The NDMP service is controlled by means of the Data ONTAP administrative interface or the following commands:

    ndmpd on (Starts the NDMP service)

    ndmpd off (Stops the NDMP service)

    ndmpd status (Displays the status of the NDMP service including any active NDMP sessions)

    ndmpd probe session-number (Displays details about the specified session)

  • By default, the NDMP service is not started at boot time. To start it, add the following line to the end of the /etc/rc file on the NetApp system:

    ndmpd on

  • To determine the number of objects in a volume, enter the following command:

    maxfiles

Tips for robotic devices

  • To display the robot device file, sign on to the NetApp host and enter the following command:

    sysconfig -m

    The device names in the output are in the format mcN, where N is 0 or higher.

    Example sysconfig output:

    Medium changer (6a.4) HP C6280-7000
    mc0 - medium changer device

Tips for tape drives

  • To display tape device files, sign on to the NetApp host and enter the following command:

    sysconfig -t

    Always use the drive names that begin with nr (such as nrst0a) because these are the non-rewinding devices.

    Example sysconfig output:

    Tape drive (6a.5)  Quantum DLT7000
       rst0l  - rewind device,	       format is: 81633 bpi 40 GB (w/comp)
       nrst0l - no rewind device,	    format is: 81633 bpi 40 GB (w/comp)
       urst0l - unload/reload device, format is: 81633 bpi 40 GB (w/comp)
       rst0m  - rewind device,        format is: 85937 bpi 35 GB
       nrst0m - no rewind device,     format is: 85937 bpi 35 GB
       urst0m - unload/reload device, format is: 85937 bpi 35 GB
        rst0h - rewind device,        format is: 85937 bpi 50 GB (w/comp)
       nrst0h - no rewind device,     format is: 85937 bpi 50 GB (w/comp)
       urst0h - unload/reload device, format is: 85937 bpi 50 GB (w/comp)
        rst0a - rewind device,        format is: 85937 bpi 70 GB (w/comp)
       nrst0a - no rewind device,     format is: 85937 bpi 70 GB (w/comp)
       urst0a - unload/reload device, format is: 85937 bpi 70 GB (w/comp)
NetBackup configuration

  • If you eject a tape from a NetApp-attached drive and then try to open the device, it will reload the tape. This happens when the device is still UP and the NetBackup automatic-volume-recognition daemon (avrd) polls it.

  • Image Backup (formerly referred to as SnapMirror to Tape or SMTape) is a Data ONTAP 8.0 feature that backs up an entire volume as a single file. Before Data ONTAP 8.0, the feature was called SMTape, and it required the customer to obtain a Product Variance Request from NetApp.

    Note:

    Because Image Backup backs up an entire volume as though it is a single file, only the entire volume can be restored, not individual files within that volume.

    To enable Image Backup, enter the following environment variables in the Backup Selections tab (file list) of the NetBackup policy:

    SET type = smtape
    SET SMTAPE_DELETE_SNAPSHOT = Y
    /volume_to_back_up

    Explanation of the variables

    • SET type = smtape

      Specifies the image backup feature.

    • SET SMTAPE_DELETE_SNAPSHOT = Y

      Deletes the snapshot after the backup completes. A snapshot is taken of the volume before the backup is written to tape. Deleting the snapshot saves storage space.

    • /volume_to_back_up

      Specifies the volume you want to back up, such as/vol/vol1.

    Note:

    This feature is not currently supported with NDMP backups from NetApp storage configured with NetBackup Replication Director.

Troubleshooting

The logs on the NetApp filer must be viewed through an NFS or CIFS mount point. On the NetApp filer, general messages appear in /etc/messages.

Other

Known restrictions

  • The user name used with the tpconfig command must be defined as root for each data mover.

  • When restoring files, if the NetApp filer does not use Direct Access Recovery (DAR), the destination path that you specify for the restore must end with the original folder and file name. If the original backup path was/vol/vol1/mydir/myfile, the destination path for the restore must end with /mydir/myfile. Otherwise, NetBackup appends /mydir/myfile to the end of the destination path.

    For more details on DAR, and to determine whether DAR has been disabled in NetBackup, refer to the NetBackup for NDMP Administrator's Guide.

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