NetWorker has an irritating quirk where it doesn’t allow you to clone or stage incomplete savesets. I can understand the rationale behind it – it’s not completely usable data, but that rationale is wrong.<\/p>\n
If you don’t think this is the case, all you have to do to test is start a backup, cancel it mid-way through a saveset, then attempt to clone that saveset. Here’s an example:<\/p>\n
[root@tara ~]# save -b Big -q -LL \/usr\nOct 25 13:07:15 tara logger: NetWorker media: (waiting) Waiting for 1\nwritable volume(s) to backup pool 'Big' disk(s) or tape(s) on tara.pmdg.lab\n<backup running, CTRL-C pressed>\n(interrupted), exiting\n[root@tara ~]# mminfo -q \"volume=BIG995S3\"\n volume\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 client\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 date\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 size\u00a0\u00a0 level\u00a0 name\nBIG995S3\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 tara.pmdg.lab 10\/25\/2009 175 MB manual \/usr\n[root@tara ~]# mminfo -q \"volume=BIG995S3\" -avot\n volume\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 client\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 date\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 time\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 size ssid\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 fl\u00a0\u00a0 lvl name\nBIG995S3\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 tara.pmdg.lab 10\/25\/2009 01:07:15 PM 175 MB 14922466\u00a0 ca manual \/usr\n[root@tara ~]# nsrclone -b Default -S 14922466\n5876:nsrclone: skipping aborted save set 14922466\n5813:nsrclone: no complete save sets to clone<\/pre>\nNow, you may be wondering why I’m hung up on not being able to clone or stage this sort of data. The answer is simple: sometimes the only backup you have is a broken backup<\/strong>. You shouldn’t be punished for this!<\/p>\n
Overall, NetWorker has a fairly glowing pedigree in terms of enforced data viability:<\/p>\n
\n
- It doesn’t recycle savesets until all dependent savesets are also recyclable;<\/li>\n
- It’s damn aggressive at making sure you have current backups of the backup server’s bootstrap information;<\/li>\n
- If there’s any index issue it’ll end up forcing a full backup for savesets even if it’s backed them up before;<\/li>\n
- It won’t overwrite data on recovery unless you explicitly tell it to;<\/li>\n
- It lets you recover from incomplete savesets via scanner\/uasm!<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
and so on.<\/p>\n
So, logically, there makes little sense in refusing to clone\/stage incomplete savesets.<\/p>\n
There may be programmatic reasons why NetWorker doesn’t permit cloning\/staging incomplete savesets, but these aren’t sufficient reasons. NetWorker’s pedigree of extreme focus on recoverability remains tarnished by this inability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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