Initial Logs to Gather when Generating a Veritas NetBackup Appliance Case

Description

When opening a Veritas appliance cases it is recommended to generate and upload additional logs at the outset of the case being created based on the issue.  This article will discuss what logs should be gathered based on the issue present.   As expected this article can not cover every possible situation but for any appliance case the following should apply.

Veritas Netbackup Appliances (NBA)

For appliances that are reporting errors either via email or via the MAIN > MONITOR > HARDWARE > ShowHealth or ShowErrors, or any other on device problems it is recommended to collect the following:

-DataCollect
-NBSU Bundle.
-Job details of the issue.
-EEBs installed on the system along with any Maintenance Releases installed.

Generate a Datacollect 

1.  SSH into the appliance

2.  Run MAIN > SUPPORT > Datacollect  (Please note that if you just recently rebooted the appliance that a abbreviated datacollect may be running, and you may receive an error.  Please wait 30 minutes and try running the command again.)

Depending on the issue occurring on the appliance,  how busy the system is, and the size of the logs being collected this process may take some time to complete.

3.  The datacollect, depending on the model and software version you are on, may ask if you wish to collect debug logs.  Select YES.

4.  Once complete open the Logs Share (MAIN > SUPPORT > LOGS > Share Open) and map the drive.  It is recommended that when mapping the drive use hostname_or_ip\admin  as the username.

4.  Download the datacollect from the mapped drive

Drive_letter:\appliance\tmp\Datacollect.zip

[3.2 or newer] Drive_letter:\appliance\log\Datacollect

Generate an NBSU

1.  SSH into the appliance

2.  Run MAIN > SUPPORT > NBSU Create

Depending on the size of your Netbackup domain, if this is a master and media server, the number of clients, and how busy the system is this could take some time to complete.

There is a possibility that if the issue is with the Netbackup services that some of the collection processes may hang.  Please give the NBSU at least 30 minutes to complete, however if a timeout does not occur you can run a ctrl C on the current step and it will bypass that one collection stage.  Please avoid doing this where possible.

3.  Once complete open the Logs Share (MAIN > SUPPORT > LOGS > Share Open) and map the drive.  It is recommended that when mapping the drive use hostname_or_ip\admin  as the username.

4.  Download the NBSU from the mapped drive

Drive_letter:\NBU\netbackup\nbsu

Complete Details from the Backup Job that is failing / Error in email / Error Observed in CLISH

Please copy the complete job details into a case note. This provides Veritas with much needed additional details of the policy configuration, disk pool details, time details for the failing job, etc outside of just the error code.

Paste the initial error into the error code section when creating the case..  Be aware that the error at the bottom of the job details may not be the actual initial error.  If you scroll up the job details you may see prior errors in red that point to the main error of the failure.  So as an example.  An error 191 is a generic error code.  If you scroll up you may discover that the disk pool was down which should be populated into the error code field of the case.  This assists Veritas in targeted troubleshooting of the issue.

In the event this issue is not related to a failing backup job, but an error being reported by the appliance please provide the complete error.  Again paste this into the error code section of the case. If the error code does not fit within the given space, put a case note with the error or into the description of the issue.

List of Installed EEBs on the System along with any Maintenance Releases that are installed.

Many times an issue can be resolved by understanding the current state of the software on the appliance.  From the appliance's CLISH run MAIN > MANAGE > SOFTWARE > List EEBs

and

MAIN > MANAGE > SOFTWARE > List Version

Once the case has been created, under environment please provide the appliance model, NBA version, if any maintenance releases are installed, and what EEBs are installed.  Again this will assist Veritas in time to resolution by allowing us to more fully understand your environment and configuration.