Basics – Stopping and starting NetWorker from the Windows command line

I always like to know how to work with the command line, even on Windows. (As I say in my book, while a picture may be worth a thousand works, a GUI is not necessarily worth a thousand command line options.)

As such, when I want to stop and restart NetWorker on Windows, I find it faster on the command line than going to the services panel and scrolling through to the various processes.

Note: All of these options are documented in the NetWorker and License Manager administration manuals, but as always, there’s a difference between something that’s documented and something you can find, so I’m presenting these for those who are pressed for time.

There are lengthy names for each of the NetWorker client service, NetWorker server service, and NetWorker Management Console server service which you may think would make it inconvenient to stop and restart from the command line, but thankfully there’s shortcut names as well. These are:

• NetWorker Remote Exec Service: nsrexecd
• NetWorker Backup and Recover Server: nsrd
• EMC GST Service: gstd
• NetWorker License Manager: lgtolmd

Now, if you’re wanting to quickly stop everything, you can rely on process dependencies and run:

C:> net stop nsrexecd /y

That will shutdown everything, since everything relies on the nsrexecd (client) process in order to run.

If you want to start NetWorker on a client, all you need to run is:

C:> net start nsrexecd

If you’re wanting to start NetWorker on a server though, you should run:

C:> net start nsrd

There’s a simple reason for this – nsrd relies on nsrexecd, so Windows dependency checking will start nsrexecd first for you.

Similarly, if you want to start the management console on a Windows machine, you’d run:

C:> net start gstd

And if you’re running Legato License Manager, you’d run:

C:> net start lgtolmd