Troubleshooting guide

Backup and Restore Functional Description

234 NetBackup Troubleshooting Guide - UNIX

NetBackup Database Backups

The administrator can use an option in the administrator interface to start a manual

backup of the NetBackup databases or configure NetBackup to automatically back up its

databases (Figure 10).

It is possible to configure automatic database backups to occur either:

◆ After each scheduled backup session that results in the creation of at least one backup

image.

◆ After scheduled, user-directed, or manual backup or archive sessions that result in the

creation of at least one backup or archive image.

For automatic database backups, NetBackup uses the scheduler, bpsched, to determine if

any backups are required. The scheduler is activated by the request daemon, bprd, at

intervals determined by the Wakeup Interval global attribute. If a backup is needed,

bpsched uses the client daemon, bpcd, to start the database backup program,

bpbackupdb.

For a manual database backup, NetBackup invokes bpbackupdb directly, without going

through bprd or the scheduler.

Once started, bpbackupdb:

1. Queries bpdbm for the database paths to back up and the media ID to use for the

backup.

2. Starts the tape and optical manager, bptm, and sends it the media ID in a special

mount request.

The tape and optical manager, bptm, recognizes the request as being for a database

backup and checks the database to ensure that the media ID is not one used for

regular backups. The bptm program then includes the media ID in a request to the

Media Manager device daemon, ltid. The device daemon finds the media and

causes it to be mounted on an appropriate device.