{"id":463,"date":"2009-05-27T17:26:04","date_gmt":"2009-05-27T07:26:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nsrd.wordpress.com\/?p=463"},"modified":"2018-12-12T16:05:41","modified_gmt":"2018-12-12T06:05:41","slug":"basics-important-mminfo-fields","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/2009\/05\/27\/basics-important-mminfo-fields\/","title":{"rendered":"Basics &#8211; Important mminfo fields"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Most NetWorker administrators with even a passing familiarity of <em>mminfo<\/em> will be aware of the &#8220;savetime&#8221; field, which reports when a saveset was created (i.e., when the backup was taken).<\/p>\n<p>There are however some other fields that also provide additional date\/time details about savesets, and knowing about them can be a real boon. Here&#8217;s a quick summary of the important date\/time fields that provide information about savesets:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>savetime \u2013 The time\/date, <em>on the client<\/em> of the backup.<\/li>\n<li>sscreate \u2013 The time\/date <em>on the server<\/em> of the backup.<\/li>\n<li>ssinsert \u2013 The time\/date <em>on the server<\/em> of the last time the saveset was inserted into the media database.<\/li>\n<li>sscomp \u2013 The time\/date that the backup completed*.<\/li>\n<li>ssaccess \u2013 The date\/time that the backup was last accessed for backup or recovery purposes**.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Now, remembering that we can append, in the report specifications, a field length to any field, we can get some very useful information out of the media database for savesets. For instance, to see when the backups started and stopped for a volume, you might run:<\/p>\n<pre>[root@nox ~]# mminfo -q \"volume=ISO_Archive.001\" -r \"name,\nsavetime(23),sscomp(23)\"\n name&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; date&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; time&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ss completed\n\/d\/03\/share-a\/ISO&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 05\/06\/2009 08:38:40 AM 05\/06\/2009 12:34:18 PM<\/pre>\n<p>So, not only do we have the date, but also the time of both the start and the finish of the backup.<\/p>\n<p>To compare the client savetime with the server savetime, we&#8217;d use the <em>sscreate<\/em> field:<\/p>\n<pre>[root@nox ~]# mminfo -q \"volume=ISO_Archive.001\" -r \"name,\nsavetime(23),sscreate(23)\"\n name&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; date&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; time&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ss created\n\/d\/03\/share-a\/ISO&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 05\/06\/2009 08:38:40 AM 05\/06\/2009 08:38:42 AM<\/pre>\n<p>Note in this second there was a 2 second skew between the backup server and the client at the time the backup was run.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll leave ssinsert as an exercise to the reader &#8211; if you&#8217;ve got any recently scanned in savesets, give it a try and compare it against the output from sscreate and savetime.<\/p>\n<p>However, moving on to the last field I mentioned, <em>ssaccess<\/em>, we get some very interesting results. Let&#8217;s see the output from:<\/p>\n<pre>[root@nox ~]# mminfo -q \"volume=ISO_Archive.001,name=\/d\/03\/share-a\/ISO\" -r \"name,\nsavetime(23),ssaccess(23)\"\n name&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; date&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; time&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ss access\n\/d\/03\/share-a\/ISO&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 05\/06\/2009 08:38:40 AM 05\/06\/2009 08:42:25 AM\n\/d\/03\/share-a\/ISO&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 05\/06\/2009 08:38:40 AM 05\/06\/2009 08:43:31 AM\n\/d\/03\/share-a\/ISO&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 05\/06\/2009 08:38:40 AM 05\/06\/2009 08:46:00 AM\n\/d\/03\/share-a\/ISO&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 05\/06\/2009 08:38:40 AM 05\/06\/2009 08:48:12 AM\n\/d\/03\/share-a\/ISO&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 05\/06\/2009 08:38:40 AM 05\/06\/2009 08:49:04 AM\n\/d\/03\/share-a\/ISO&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 05\/06\/2009 08:38:40 AM 05\/06\/2009 08:49:55 AM\n\/d\/03\/share-a\/ISO&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 05\/06\/2009 08:38:40 AM 05\/06\/2009 08:54:10 AM\n(snip)<\/pre>\n<p>Now, if you&#8217;ve been following the thread, the above doesn&#8217;t immediately appear to make sense. On that volume there&#8217;s only one saveset, so why are we suddenly getting entries for what appears to be multiple savesets? Well, they&#8217;re not multiple savesets \u2013 let&#8217;s try it again with SSID, rather than name:<\/p>\n<pre>[root@nox ~]# mminfo -q \"volume=ISO_Archive.001,name=\/d\/03\/share-a\/ISO\" -r \"ssid,\nsavetime(23),ssaccess(23)\"\n ssid&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; date&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; time&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ss access\n67158002&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 05\/06\/2009 08:38:40 AM 05\/06\/2009 08:42:25 AM\n67158002&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 05\/06\/2009 08:38:40 AM 05\/06\/2009 08:43:31 AM\n67158002&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 05\/06\/2009 08:38:40 AM 05\/06\/2009 08:46:00 AM\n67158002&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 05\/06\/2009 08:38:40 AM 05\/06\/2009 08:48:12 AM\n67158002&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 05\/06\/2009 08:38:40 AM 05\/06\/2009 08:49:04 AM\n67158002&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 05\/06\/2009 08:38:40 AM 05\/06\/2009 08:49:55 AM\n67158002&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 05\/06\/2009 08:38:40 AM 05\/06\/2009 08:54:10 AM\n(snip)<\/pre>\n<p>An astute reader may think I&#8217;ve got some problem with my media database at this point \u2013 only one instance of a saveset can ever appear on the same volume, so the above looks like it <em>simply shouldn&#8217;t happen<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s where it gets really interesting though. NetWorker writes savesets in <em>fragments<\/em>, and each fragment of the saveset is generated and may be accessed separately \u2013 therefore, mminfo is reporting the <em>access time<\/em> for each <em>fragment<\/em> of the saveset. We can fully see this by expanding what we&#8217;re asking mminfo to report \u2013 including <em>fragsize<\/em>, <em>mediafile<\/em> and <em>mediarec<\/em>.<\/p>\n<pre>[root@nox 02]# mminfo -q \"volume=ISO_Archive.001\" -r \"savetime(23),ssaccess(23),\nfragsize,mediafile,mediarec\"\n date&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; time&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ss access&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; size file&nbsp; rec\n 05\/06\/2009 08:38:40 AM 05\/06\/2009 08:42:25 AM 1040 MB&nbsp;&nbsp; 2&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 0\n 05\/06\/2009 08:38:40 AM 05\/06\/2009 08:43:31 AM 1040 MB&nbsp;&nbsp; 3&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 0\n 05\/06\/2009 08:38:40 AM 05\/06\/2009 08:46:00 AM 1040 MB&nbsp;&nbsp; 4&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 0\n 05\/06\/2009 08:38:40 AM 05\/06\/2009 08:48:12 AM 1040 MB&nbsp;&nbsp; 5&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 0\n 05\/06\/2009 08:38:40 AM 05\/06\/2009 08:49:04 AM 1040 MB&nbsp;&nbsp; 6&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 0\n 05\/06\/2009 08:38:40 AM 05\/06\/2009 08:49:55 AM 1040 MB&nbsp;&nbsp; 7&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 0<\/pre>\n<p>Now, the man page for mminfo says that the ssaccess time is updated for both backup <em>and<\/em> recovery operations, but despite various recovery tests I can&#8217;t yet get it to update. Despite this however, this is still useful &#8211; it allows us to tell how long each <em>fragment<\/em> took to backup, which lets us interrogate, at a later point, whether there were any pauses of significant delays in the data stream.<\/p>\n<p>Regardless of the little discrepancy with <em>ssaccess<\/em>, you can see that there&#8217;s a great set of options available to retrieve additional date\/time related details about savesets using mminfo.<\/p>\n<p>(I&#8217;ve currently got a case open with EMC to determine whether <em>ssaccess<\/em> should be updated on recovery attempts, or whether the documentation has an error. I&#8217;ll update this posting once I find out.)<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;<br \/>\n* The man page for mminfo does not document whether this is server time or client time. I assume, given that <em>savetime<\/em> is client time, that sscomp is also client time.<\/p>\n<p>** The man page for mminfo does not document whether this is server time or client time. I assume that it&#8217;s in server time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Most NetWorker administrators with even a passing familiarity of mminfo will be aware of the &#8220;savetime&#8221; field, which reports when&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[16,20],"tags":[594,861,922,924,925,929],"class_list":["post-463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-networker","category-scripting","tag-mminfo","tag-savetime","tag-ssaccess","tag-sscomp","tag-sscreate","tag-ssinsert"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pKpIN-7t","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7652,"href":"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463\/revisions\/7652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nsrd.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}