Veritas NetBackup™ Device Configuration Guide

Last Published:
Product(s): NetBackup (8.3.0.1, 8.3, 8.2, 8.1.2)
  1. Introducing device configuration
    1.  
      Using this guide
    2. General device configuration sequence
      1.  
        Configuration cautions
    3.  
      About the NetBackup compatibility lists
  2. Section I. Operating systems
    1. Linux
      1.  
        Before you begin on Linux
      2. About the required Linux SCSI drivers
        1.  
          About the st driver debug mode
      3.  
        Verifying the Linux drivers
      4. About configuring robot and drive control for Linux
        1.  
          About the Linux robotic control device files
        2.  
          About the Linux tape drive device files
      5.  
        Verifying the device configuration on Linux
      6.  
        About SAN clients on Linux
      7.  
        About SCSI persistent bindings for Linux
      8.  
        About Emulex HBAs
      9.  
        Utilities to test SCSI devices
      10.  
        Linux command summary
    2. Solaris
      1.  
        Before you begin on Solaris
      2.  
        About the NetBackup sg driver
      3.  
        Determining if the NetBackup sg driver is installed
      4.  
        Special configuration for the StorEdge Network Foundation HBA driver
      5.  
        About binding Fibre Channel HBA drivers
      6.  
        Configuring Solaris 10 x86 for multiple drive paths
      7. Installing/reinstalling the sg and the st drivers
        1.  
          st.conf file example
        2.  
          sg.conf file example
        3.  
          sg.links file example
      8.  
        Configuring 6 GB and larger SAS HBAs in Solaris
      9.  
        Preventing Solaris driver unloading
      10. About Solaris robotic controls
        1.  
          About SCSI and FCP robotic controls on Solaris
        2.  
          Examples of SCSI and FCP robotic control device files on Solaris
      11. About Solaris tape drive device files
        1.  
          About Berkeley-style close
        2.  
          About no rewind device files on Solaris
        3.  
          About fast-tape positioning (locate-block) on Solaris
        4.  
          About SPC-2 SCSI reserve on Solaris
        5.  
          Disabling SPC-2 SCSI reserve on Solaris
        6.  
          About nonstandard tape drives
      12. Configuring Solaris SAN clients to recognize FT media servers
        1.  
          Adding the FT device entry to the st.conf file
        2.  
          Modifying the st.conf file so that Solaris discovers devices on two LUNS
      13.  
        Uninstalling the sg driver on Solaris
      14.  
        Solaris command summary
    3. Windows
      1.  
        Before you begin configuring NetBackup on Windows
      2.  
        About tape device drivers on Windows
      3.  
        Attaching devices to a Windows system
  3. Section II. Robotic storage devices
    1. Robot overview
      1.  
        NetBackup robot types
      2. NetBackup robot attributes
        1.  
          ACS robots
        2.  
          TLD robots
      3.  
        Table-driven robotics
      4.  
        Robotic test utilities
      5. Robotic processes
        1.  
          Processes by robot type
        2.  
          Robotic process example
    2. Oracle StorageTek ACSLS robots
      1.  
        About Oracle StorageTek ACSLS robots
      2.  
        Sample ACSLS configurations
      3.  
        Media requests for an ACS robot
      4.  
        About configuring ACS drives
      5.  
        Configuring shared ACS drives
      6.  
        Adding tapes to ACS robots
      7. About removing tapes from ACS robots
        1.  
          Removing tapes using the ACSLS utility
        2.  
          Removing tapes using NetBackup
      8. Robot inventory operations on ACS robots
        1.  
          Configuring a robot inventory filtering on ACS robots
      9. NetBackup robotic control, communication, and logging
        1.  
          NetBackup robotic control, communication, and logging for Windows systems
        2. NetBackup robotic control, communication, and logging for UNIX systems
          1.  
            NetBackup ACS daemon (acsd)
          2.  
            NetBackup ACS SSI event logger (acssel)
          3.  
            Using acssel with a different socket name
          4.  
            NetBackup ACS storage server interface (acsssi)
          5.  
            About the ACS_SSI_SOCKET configuration option
          6.  
            Starting acsssi manually
          7.  
            Optional environment variables
      10. ACS robotic test utility
        1.  
          acstest on Windows systems
        2.  
          acstest on UNIX systems
      11.  
        Changing your ACS robotic configuration
      12. ACS configurations supported
        1.  
          Multiple ACS robots with one ACS library software host
        2.  
          Multiple ACS robots and ACS library software hosts
      13.  
        Oracle StorageTek ACSLS firewall configuration
    3. Device configuration examples
      1.  
        An ACS robot on a Windows server example
      2.  
        An ACS robot on a UNIX server example

Preventing Solaris driver unloading

When system memory is limited, Solaris unloads unused drivers from memory and reloads drivers as needed. Tape drivers are often unloaded because they are used less often than disk drivers.

The drivers NetBackup uses are the st driver (from Sun), the sg driver (from Veritas), and Fibre Channel drivers. Problems may occur depending on when the driver loads and unloads. These problems can range from a SCSI bus not able to detect a device to system panics.

Veritas recommends that you prevent Solaris from unloading the drivers from memory.

The following procedures describe how to prevent Solaris from unloading the drivers from memory.

To prevent Solaris from unloading the drivers from memory

  • Add the following forceload statements to the /etc/system file:
    forceload: drv/st
forceload: drv/sg

To prevent Solaris from unloading the Fibre Channel drivers from memory

  • Add an appropriate forceload statement to the /etc/system file.

    Which driver you force to load depends on your Fibre Channel adapter. The following is an example for a Sun Fibre Channel driver (SunFC FCP v20100509-1.143):

    forceload: drv/fcp