Troubleshooting guide

Backup and Restore Functional Description
226 NetBackup Troubleshooting Guide - UNIX
Backup and Archive Processes
The backup and archive processes vary depending on the type of client. The following
explains the basic variations. There is also a description of how NetBackup operates when
backing up its databases.
Backups and Archives - UNIX Clients
For UNIX clients, NetBackup supports scheduled, immediate manual, and user-directed
backups of both files and raw partitions. User-directed archives of files is also supported
(you cannot archive raw partitions). Once started, these operations are all similar to the
extent that the same daemons and programs execute on the server (see Figure 8). Each
type, however, is started differently.
◆ Scheduled backup operations begin when the NetBackup request daemon, bprd,
activates the scheduler, bpsched. This occurs at intervals determined by the Wakeup
Interval global attribute. Once activated, the scheduler checks the class
configurations for scheduled client backups that are due.
◆ Immediate manual backups begin if the administrator chooses the manual backup
option in the NetBackup administrator interface. This causes bprd to start bpsched,
which then processes the class, client, and schedule selected by the administrator.
◆ User-directed backups or archives begin when a user on a client starts a backup or
archive through user interface on the client (or the bpbackup or bparchive
commands). This invokes the client’s bpbackup or bparchive program, which
sends a request to the request daemon bprd on the master server. When bprd
receives the user request, it starts bpsched, which checks the class configurations for
schedules and by default chooses the first user-directed schedule that it finds in a
class that includes the requesting client. It is also possible to specify a class and
schedule by using the NetBackup configuration options, BPBACKUP_CLASS and
BPBACKUP_SCHED, on the client.
The bpbackup and bparchive programs execute with the same permissions as the
user. If you can read and write files (delete in the case of an archive), they can too.