A MULTI VOLUME VDL · demo-001 demo-002 demo-003 demo-004 demo-005 demo-006 demo-007...
Transcript of A MULTI VOLUME VDL · demo-001 demo-002 demo-003 demo-004 demo-005 demo-006 demo-007...
BakBone Software Ltd 1 July 2006
A MULTI VOLUME VDL Step-by-step configuration guide
By Peter de Vente, BakBone Software
25 JULY 2006
Company Confidential
BakBone Software Ltd
100 Longwater Avenue, Green Park, Reading, RG2 6GP
Mobile: +31 (0)6 1505 1313 Phone: +44 (0)1189 224 800 Fax: +44 (0)1189 224 899
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Introduction
By default any VDL generated with the NetVault:Backup GUI will be a single
volume VDL. Since version 7.4 it is possible to create multi volume VDLs and
this will help to overcome the file system limits of certain operating systems.
This guide explains how to configure a multi volume VDL. It is tested on
Windows, but except for the screen shots the procedure for Linux and UNIX
is the same.
For any comments, enhancements or suggestions, please mail Peter de Vente
History
Version 1 - First release, Windows only screen shots, tested on 7.4.2.
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VDL – A Short Explanation
The Virtual Disk Library (VDL) is the implementation of ‘backup to disk’ by
NetVault:Backup. The VDL acts just like a real tape library and can/must be
handled as such. It has drives, slots and media, all being virtual, of course. A
VDL is using the file system of the NetVault Server or SmartClient.
The picture above shows the layout of a VDL on disk. In this case the VDL is
generated on a Windows file system. The VDL has its own .serial file. This file
is just holding the name of the VDL, don’t change this. There are three1
directories, named slots, drives and media.
1 VDLs can have entry/exit ports. If this is configured, then there will also be a ports
directory. This guide will ignore this setting.
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Drives
In the drives directory the following layout can be found:
Each (virtual) drive is represented by a directory. The number of drives can
be changed, but it is not enough just by adding directories. In each directory
a .serial file can be found. In this file the serial number of the drive can be
found. Do not move or change this file or its contents.
Slots
In the slots directory the following layout can be found:
For every slot in the VDL there is one directory. Each directory has a unique
number. It makes sense that the numbering starts with 1 and all others are
incremented with 1, but a slot can have any number ;-).
In each slot there is just one file, named .media. This file holds just one line
of text.
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This line of text is stating the location of the media file. Changing this file or
removing it without a good reason, will result in a non-functional VDL and
loss of data.
Media
The slots and drives directories do not hold any backup data, only the .serial
and .media files. In the media directory the backup data is held in virtual
tapes. A virtual tape is represented by a file with the size of the virtual tape.
The minimal size of a virtual tape is 50 megabytes. The following layout can
be found in a (small) VDL:
Even though each media file is using the full capacity of the virtual tape, in
reality all tapes could be blank and therefore from a NetVault:Backup view
could still be empty. The (internal) usage of the virtual media can only be
seen with the NetVault:Backup GUI. The usage on the file system layer is
always 100%.
With the .media file the relationship between slots and drives and the media
files is made. The following drawing shows the relationship:
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C:
VDL
slots
drives
media
1
2
3
4
1
2
34
5
6
7
8
.serial
.serial
demo-001
demo-002
demo-003demo-004demo-005
demo-006
demo-007
demo-008
.media
.media - WordPad.media - WordPad
C:\VDL\media\demo-008
Points towards
As explained earlier the .media file holds the location of the media file.
Moving media
When using the VDL within NetVault:Backup it can/must be operated as a
real tape library. Virtual tapes (media) can be positioned in a slot or a drive,
but never in multiple slots or drives at the same time, just like the real world.
When moving a tape from a slot to a drive only the .media file is moved, not
the media file it self. The media file will never be moved by NetVault:Backup,
only the .media files are moved. This means that if the media file pointing to
virtual media ‘demo-008’ is moved to the directory ‘../drives/4’, within
NetVault:Backup the tape is loaded in drive 4.
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When selecting unload within the device manager in the NetVault:Backup
GUI, the .media file will be moved back to the original slot directory
‘../slots/8’.
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Layout of a Multi Volume VDL
With the understanding of the single volume VDL in mind, it is not difficult to
imagine a VDL that is spread over multiple volumes. It makes no sense in
spreading the slots and drives directories. They hold no backup data, but
only the .serials and .media files. On Windows those files will only take 4 KB
each. A large VDL with 500 slots and 24 drives will use (500 + 24 + 1) 2.1
MB of disk space. The media files will take a lot of space and will be spread
over more than one volume. An example would be to have 5 volumes, each
holding 100 media files (virtual tapes). When a single media file is 10 GB in
size, one volume will hold one TB of data.
The next drawing shows the layout of a multi volume VDL:
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VDL
slots
drives
1
2
34
5
6
7
8
.serial
VDL
demo-001
demo-002demo-003
demo-004demo-005
demo-006
demo-007
demo-008
My Computer
System (C:)
Data1 (D:)
media
VDL
demo-009
demo-010
demo-011
demo-012demo-013
demo-014
demo-015
demo-016
media
Data2 (E:)
9
10
1112
13
14
15
16
Only
slots
and
drives
Only
media
Only
media
Total
VDL
with
slots,
drives
and
media
In this example the VDL is using three volumes. One volume is holding the
slots and drives directories (C:) and the other two volumes (D: and E:) are
holding the media files, each having eight of them. The media files must
have unique names.
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Step-by-step Guide
To create a multi volume VDL there are several ways that will do the job.
This guide will describe one, but does not claim to be the best, most efficient
or simplest way. Any suggestions are welcome.
Preparations
Before starting, the volumes to be used must be up and running. There is no
need to have the volumes to be the same size, but it makes life easier in the
next steps if they are.
VDLs need normal file systems to be placed on. Don’t use compression or
encryption on the file systems used by VDLs. Both will decrease the speed of
the overall NetVault:Backup environment.
The creation of the new VDL is split in a few steps:
1. Creation of a small VDL with all the needed drives.
2. Creation of the needed slots.
3. Creation of the needed .media files.
4. Creation of the media files.
5. Configuring the extended VDL.
Step 2, 3 and 4 can be automated with scripts, but there is no exclusive way
how to perform these steps.
In this example the VDL will use three different locations (volumes):
1. Slots and drives at C:\Volume1
2. Eight media files at C:\Volume2
3. Eight media files at C:\Volume3
Lack of hardware prevented to have real volumes, but the principle will be
the same.
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Step 1: Creation of a small VDL with all the needed drives
1. Start the NetVault:Backup GUI.
2. Go to Device Management.
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3. Select Add.
4. Select Add Library.
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5. Right-click the NetVault Server or NetVault SmartClient where the VDL
should be configured. For SmartClients additional licenses are needed.
Make sure the license keys are installed before continuing.
6. Select ‘Create virtual library’ from the menu.
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7. Fill in the correct settings for the new VDL.
Library location = C:\Volume1 (slots and drives only)
Library name = VDL (example only, choose something you like)
Barcode prefix = demo- (example only, same a s above)
Number of drives = 4 (this should be the amount you need for the
total VDL, depending on your license this can be limited.)
Number of slots = 1 (we will make the rest by hand)
Media capacity (MB) = 50 (this is the minimum, the correct media
files will be made in a next step)
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8. Press OK when finished filling in the fields as described.
9. Depending of your settings you will find a similar layout on your first
volume.
DO NOT CONTINUE CONFIGURING THE NEW VDL AT THIS POINT!!!
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Step 2: Creation of the needed slots
In our example we need 16 slots, holding 16 media file pointers (.media). In
the first step we only made one slot, so we need another 15. This can be
done by hand or by using a script.
1. Create a script that makes 15 new directories in the slots directory.
See example below.
Put the script at the root of the Volume1 directory. To make 15 more slots in
the C:\Volume1\VDL directory execute the following command:
makeslots 2 16 VDL
2. Check the slots directory to see if all 16 slots are there.
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Step 3: Creation of the needed .media files
After the previous step only the directory 1 under the slots directory has a
.media file. All other slots are empty. The slots should be filled with .media
files pointing to the other two volumes.
In this example the first eight slots will point to C:\Volume2\VDL and the last
eight slots will point to C:\Volume3\VDL.
1. Create a script that makes the correct .media files. See example
below.
2. Execute the script for the first 8 slots.
makedotmedia demo- C:\Volume2\VDL\media C:\Volume1\VDL\slots 1 8
3. Execute the script for the last 8 slots (watch out, other volume!)
makedotmedia demo- C:\Volume3\VDL\media C:\Volume1\VDL\slots 9 16
4. Check one or two .media files to see if they are correct.
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This is the .media file of slot 1:
This is the .media file of slot 10:
Make sure that each .media is conform the following rules:
• If there are no leading zeros in the media names, e.g. demo-1 (demo-
001), add them.
• Make sure there is only a single line in the file (no CR’s, LFs, empty
lines etc.)
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Step 4: Creation of the media files
Next step is to fill the volumes with the media files (virtual tapes). This can
be done by a NetVault:Backup tool called nvmakemedia. Make sure that
the complete path towards the media files is present as the tool will
not make them and will fail if the path is not present! This means that
if you defined that a media file must be present at C:\Volume2\VDL\media,
this path must be there before using the nvmakemedia tool.
1. Open a command box.
2. Go to the NetVault:Backup utililties directory.
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3. Execute the nvmakemedia tool without options to see how the tool
must be used.
4. Execute the nvmakemedia tool to create the missing media for the
VDL. In this example 50m (smallest possible) is chosen for file size.
5. If any media is missing you will be prompted to have it be created.
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6. Type Y for any media that is missing, check that the correct path will
be used.
7. To check if all needed media are created, execute the same command
again.
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Step 5: Configuring the extended VDL
To finalize the procedure, the VDL must be configured within the
NetVault:Backup GUI.
1. Go to Device Management in the NetVault:Backup GUI.
2. Double-click on the NetVault Server of SmartClient to open it.
3. Select the newly created VDL in the tab ‘Library Selection’.
4. Select the ‘Drive Selection’ tab.
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5. Double-click on the NetVault Server or SmartClient to open it.
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6. For each drive in the ‘Choose Drives’ window on the left a ‘Drive Bay’
must be selected. For bay 1 of 4 double-click on the first drive.
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7. Increase the ‘Select for drive bay’ number with one (press on the
button).
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8. Double-click on the second drive.
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9. Repeat step 15 and 16 for drives 3 and 4.
10. Select the ‘Configure’ tab.
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Each drive should belong to a drive bay.
11. Give the VDL a normal name in the field ‘Library Name’.
12. Click on the save button.
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13. You should now have a Multi Volume VDL. Congratulations!