Client checking with nsradmin

I’ve probably looked at the man page for nsradmin a half dozen times since NetWorker 8.2 came out, and I’d not noticed this, but someone in NetWorker product management mentioned it to me and I’m well and truly kicking myself I hadn’t noticed it.

You see, nsradmin with 8.2 introduced a configuration checker. It’s not fully functional yet, but the area where it’s functional is probably the most important – at the client level.

I’ve longed for an option like this – I even wrote a basic tool to do various connectivity checking against clients a long time ago, but it was never as optimal as I’d have liked. This option on the other hand is impressive.

You invoke it by pulling up nsradmin and running:

# nsradmin -C "query"

For instance:

If you’re a long-term NetWorker administrator, you can’t look at that and not have a “whoa!” moment.

If you’re used to nsradmin, you can see the queries are literally just nsradmin style queries. (If you’re wanting to know more about nsradmin, check out Turbocharged EMC NetWorker, my free eBook.)

As a NetWorker geek, I can’t say how cool this extension to nsradmin is, and just how regularly I’ll be incorporating it into my diagnostics processes.