Unable to send NetBackup Catalog DR (Disaster Recovery) email on Flex Appliance Instance

Problem

In some situations a NetBackup Flex instance is unable to send the Disaster Recovery email containing the DR package.
 

Error Message

bpdbm log will show:

12:22:18.203 [24891] <16> send_DR_report: failed to execute "/usr/openv/netbackup/bin/mail_dr_info.sh" "admin@example.com" "NetBackup Catalog Backup successful on host nbumaster status 0" "/usr/openv/netbackup/db/mail/nbumaster_1568628682" "//mnt/Catalog/nbumaster/CATALOG_1568628682_INCR,//mnt/Catalog/nbumaster/CATALOG_1568628682_INCR.drpkg" (126)
12:22:18.204 [24891] <16> generate_DR_file_and_send_mail: Could not send DR report
12:22:18.204 [24891] <16> exec_catalog_DR_protection: Failed to send DR image to admin@example.com(0)
12:22:18.206 [24891] <4> jmcomm_UpdateActionStatus: Sending status: 0 back to parent JobID: 2214562
 

Cause

The Flex instance is unable to locate which mail server to use and is defaulting to run sendmail which is not installed within the instance
 

Solution

The workaround is to:

1) Login to the NetBackup Primary (Master) server via SSH

2) Edit the /etc/mail.rc in the instance and add the following line to the end, replacing <SMTPSERVER> with the smtp server to use:

     set smtp=smtp://<SMTPSERVER>

Note if the SMTP server requires a username and password then additional lines are required such as:

This issue exists in all NetBackup instance images for Flex up to and including 8.2. This is scheduled to be resolved in the next images released.

This solution can also be used with NBFS 3.1 and earlier.