Netbackup Interview Question

1) Which are the backup types that are available in Netbackup ?

Answer-
Differential Incremental Backup
Commulative Incremental Backup
User Backup
User Archive
Full Backup

2)What is a master server & media server?

3)What is volume pools & volume Groups?
4)What is media multiplexing?
Answer-
The process of sending concurrent-multiple backups from one or more clients
to a single storage device and interleaving those images onto the media.
5)What does these status codes mean- 216, 256,298,50?
6)What is the process of importing images and why do we import images?
7)What does it mean by inventoring a robot?
8) What is avrd ?
Answer-
The automatic volume recognition daemon on UNIX and process on Windows
9) What is bpadm?
Answer-
An administrator utility that runs on NetBackup UNIX servers. It has a character-based,
menu interface that can be run from terminals that do not have X Windows
capabilities.
10)What is a frozen image ?
Answer-
A stable disk copy of the data prior to backup. A frozen image is created
very rapidly, causing minimal impact on other applications. There are two
basic types: copy-on-write and mirror.
11)What is retention period ?
Answer-
The length of time that NetBackup keeps backup and archive images. The retention
period is specified on the schedule.
12)What is tape spanning ?
Using more than one tape to store a single backup image.
13)What is TLD,TLH,TLM,TL4,TL8?
TLD-Tape Library DLT
TLH-Tape Library Half-inch
TLM-Tape Library Multimedia
TL4-Tape Library 4MM
TL8-Tape Library 8MM
14) What is the full form of DLT?
Answer-Digital-linear tape or tape drive type.
15)What is image expiration and volume expiration?
Image Expiration-
The date and time when NetBackup stops tracking a backup image.

Volume Expiration-
The date and time when the physical media (tape) is considered to be no longer
usable.
16)Commanline to shutdown netbackup services on Windows Server?
Answer-bpdown
17) Which command is used to produce a report on Status of Netbackup Images?
Answer-bpimagelist
18) What is the use of command vmupdate?
Answer-Inventory the media contents of a robotic library.
19) Commandline for Creating a copy of backups created by NetBackup?
Answer-bpduplicate

1. If you have a SCSI attached robot and in device monitor you see the drives marked
as
AVR, what does that mean and how would you fix it?

In the NetBackup (tm) administration GUI, select Media and Device Management |
Devices | Robots, then select the robot in question, right-click and select Change, click
Browse to detect and select the new device path, and finally click OK to close the
Change Robot window.

With the new definition in place, stop and start the Device Manager service and then
verify that the control for the drives has
changed from automatic volume recognition (AVR) to the appropriate setting (i.e. TLD,
TL8, etc.).

1. The Removal Storage Service was running on the server, stopped this service.
2. RAn Configuration Wizard and the wizard detected all drives and Tape Robots.
3. Moves tape drives into tape libraries.
4. Rebooted the robots once and didn't shown any errors.
5. Rebooted the server and Ran Manual backup.
6. Backup process Started on all drives without any issues.

2. If I asked you to tell me if a client has Netbackup on it just by using a telnet command
what would you do?
ANS: Telnet command used to check the bpcd port is running on the client
Telnet < host name> bpcd /13782
3. If you wanted to know what IP address netbackup was using to perform backups
what
command would you run and where would you run it?

ANS: use bpclntcmd ±pn from master server to the client.

Bpcover ±r < host name>
4. What is flash backup?

Flash backup is like a raw backup where it does the backup at the block level--the main
difference is that it can do differentials. The major advantage however, and the place
where Veritas/Symantec recommends using Flash Backups, is when you have a large
number (millions) of small files. Flash backup will back up these files much faster since
it's doing a block level backup rather than trying to pick up each file from the file system.

5. How is image stored in netbackup

Images are in GNU Tar for mat, but the tar binary has been mod i fied from GNU
source. Image meta data is a binary file (the
catalog)
6. If a media ID A04567 comes back and it is frozen, what are the steps to unfreeze it
and move it back to scratch from the command line?
ANS: bpmedia ±unfreez < Media ID>
Through GUI , right click on the media to move to scratch volume pool
7. If you wanted to bypass netbackup commands and move a tape from slot 1 to drive 3
how would you do that?
ANS: robtest s1 d3
8. What is the client version supported by NBU 6.x and 5.x masters
ANS: The version support from 6.x to 4.5
9. If your last catalog backup was two days ago and the master server crashed what
would you have to do to bring your environment back up to present time?
ANS:Need to check previous last two days back catalog backup tapes and restore
10. How do you find a disk based image via the command line and then delete it?
ANS: http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/279174.htm
11. How do you import an NBU image that has been written to a disk storage unit?
Bpimport command would work well here.

12. What are the critical catalogs or databases on a Media Server?

13. How would you tune NetBackup to increase backup performance?

In which location(path) the temp files located in Netbackup for Windows/Unix?

This would be done by tunning the number and size of buffers. NET_BUFFER_SZ,
SIZE_DATA_BUFFERS,
NUMBER_DATA_BUFFERS
But could also be done by changing other parameters such as multistreaming,
multiplexing, etc.

14.What is the process of importing images and why do we import images?

ANS: There are two phases.

Phase I: It builds the skeleton metadata
Phase II: It allows you to select which images to actually complete the import process.

http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/240402.htm
15.How to Importing and expiring images?
Backups that have expired may be imported by using the bpimport command, provided
the media on which the backups reside
have not yet been overwritten. Importing images is a two-stage process:
Phase 1

This is performed first and must be done on all media concerned with the backups to be
imported (particularly if the backups
have spanned over several tapes). This phase recreates catalog entries for the backups
by populating the media server's Media
Database (mediaDB) with the media IDs, and creating the header files of the backup
images in the Image Database. After this
phase is completed, the images may be browsed for selection for Phase 2 import.

Phase 2
This may be performed on all media involved in Phase 1, or if there is a selection of
backup images desired for importing (after
browsing), then the import may be done on the basis of backup IDs. This phase of the
import creates the files file(s) of the
backup images in the Image Database.

bpexpdate -recalculate -backupid backup_id -d 0 -client name - M master_server

16.What does it mean by inventoring a robot?
Scan all the media in the libary
17.What is SAN media server?
Manages backups and restores of Client and the Media Server's local data to direct
attached or SAN-attached storage
(tape/disk).
Provides all the functionality of a Media Server without the ability to backup and restore
data from remote clients. The SAN
Media Server is designed for data-intensive systems that require high performance
access to SAN attached backup hardware.
18. How to check tape is bad?
19. How to check the tape is already expired or not?
If the Images are expired then the tapes will be scratch pool.

20. How to check volume pool?

21 Media has been already expired, How to find out?

22. How to check tape is in cap?

Login to robtest
S P
Showes the tapes in Cap.
23. How to see log entries, how to create log directories?

etBackup 6.x introduced a new type of logging, referred to as unified logging. This style
of logging is used by new NetBackup
daemons, such as the Intelligent Resource Manager (IRM) and the Enterprise Media
Manager (EMM) daemons. Unified logs are
written to the /usr/openv/logs directory
By default, the maximum log file size in unified logging is 5120 KB. After a log file
reaches 5120 KB, the file is closed and a new
log file is opened. NetBackup will also keep 28 days of logging, by default.

24.SQL Script.. in client..how to create?

ANS: Start> program> Backup, restore and archive> select DB¶s and save. It will create
.bch files
25. How to install media server(with device configuration steps)?
http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/316373.htm
26.what is avr mode

The robotic daemon managing the drive has connected to LTID (the device daemon
and Device Manager service) and is
running. The drive is in the usable state. AVR is assumed to be active for the drive, as
all robotic drives must be in automatic
volume recognition (AVR) mode (not OPR mode).
Applies only to robotic drives.

27. There is a Tape library with 10 drives ...Can we able to create 2 Storage units.....?

ANS: As per my knowledge. N no. of storage units you can create. But mail criteria to
create a storage unit is.
1: It should be same robot controller
2: It should be same library

3: It should be same media server connected

4: It should be same Density.

28.There are 1000 Client machines , 999 machines are transferring datas in good
speed
but one client machine is taking too long to transfer a datas.. .. . That is ...backup should
complete within 2 hours ..but after 12 hours and more ...the data transfer is still
happening.... why?

ANS: Please check the Network bandwidth. BPTM,bpbrm on both master and media
server and bpbkar and bpcd logs on clients.
I am appreciated if any one give more information on this