This module focuses on the recovery of data residing on the NetWorker server.

We will look
at the recovery of control data:
• The NetWorker resource database
• Media database information
• Client file index data

Copyright © 2013 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Module 13: Recovering a NetWorker Server 1
 This lesson covers the prerequisites for recovering a NetWorker server, including the
NetWorker bootstrap reports and backups of the media database, resource database, and
the client file indexes.

Copyright © 2013 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Module 13: Recovering a NetWorker Server 2
 Although it should be obvious, a NetWorker server’s control data can only be recovered if it
has been previously backed up. That is why the bootstrap and CFI save sets are automatically
backed up during server-initiated backups.
Having a copy of the bootstrap report handy facilitates the recovery. Without the report you
may not know which volume contains the bootstrap save set. Although a manual method of
locating the proper volume is described later in this module, it can be very time-consuming.

Copyright © 2013 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Module 13: Recovering a NetWorker Server 3
 To completely rebuild a NetWorker server, recovery of the bootstrap save set is the first step.
Until the media database and resource files are restored, you will not be able to recover any
other data, as NetWorker will not have knowledge of either volumes or clients.
The bootstrap save set is automatically backed up during server-initiated backups. The
savegrp command is responsible for backing up the save set and creating the bootstrap
report.

Copyright © 2013 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Module 13: Recovering a NetWorker Server 4
 For each bootstrap save set backed up in the last 40 days, the bootstrap report lists its save
set ID (SSID) and the name of the volume on which it is located. The report also shows the
exact location (file and record number) of the save set on the volume. Although not
absolutely required during a bootstrap recovery, this information speeds up positioning of
the volume to the proper location.
You should save the bootstrap report every time a bootstrap save set is created.
The preconfigured Bootstrap notification controls how the bootstrap report is saved. The
bootstrap report is, by default, sent as an email to the default email recipient (administrator
or root). The email recipient and the method of sending the report (e.g. send to printer
instead) can be changed by modifying the Action attribute of the Bootstrap notification.
Important: You should make sure you are receiving the bootstrap information. If the
bootstrap notification is configured for email and an email recipient is not configured, the
bootstrap reports are lost. When a recipient is later configured, the reports are generated
during the next savegrp operation. If configured to the printer (not the default
configuration) and fails for any reason, the bootstrap information is appended to the
savegroup completion report. It is recommended to send/save the bootstrap report to a
host other than the NetWorker server for disaster recovery purposes.
Note: To send the bootstrap report to multiple destinations (for example to a printer and to
an email address) you can either create additional notifications with the same event and
priority but with a different action, or place the full pathname to a custom script in the
action field of the notification.

Copyright © 2013 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Module 13: Recovering a NetWorker Server 5
 During a server-initiated backup, savegrp will automatically back up the client file index of
each client in the group. The level of the CFI backup is determined by the level of the client
backup during that save group:

• Full and Level 1-9 backups of a client result in the CFI being backed up at the same
level as the client.
• Incremental backups of a client results in a Level 9 CFI backup.
To perform a full backup of the bootstrap save set and the client file indexes of all clients in a
group, use:
savegrp –l full -O group_name

Note: Although recovery of the bootstrap save set is required during recovery of a
NetWorker server, recovery of individual client file index save sets is optional. A client file
index provides a browsable interface during recovery, as well as the ability to easily recover a
host to a particular point in time. If these benefits are not immediately necessary, you may
decide to not recover the CFI of individual (or all) clients, especially if an index is extremely
large.
If you choose not to recover a client’s index, you must use nsrck to create an empty CFI
prior to the next backup of the client.

nsrck client_name

Copyright © 2013 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Module 13: Recovering a NetWorker Server 6
 In addition to using the savegrp –O command, you can also select the Index only option
on the Advanced properties of the group to backup only client file indexes. This can be
particularly useful when configuring a single group to backup all indexes, as could be done
when used in conjunction with the No index save option on other groups.

Note: Running the savegrp command with the -I option disables the saving of each
client’s index.

Copyright © 2013 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Module 13: Recovering a NetWorker Server 7
 As a best practice, it is recommended to write all bootstrap and client file index backups to a
dedicated pool. To send the bootstrap and client file indexes to the same media pool, create
a pool resource with these attribute values:
• Name: Index
• Pool type: Backup
• Save Sets: Bootstrap
index
Also, check the group(s) for which you want this action to apply. When the group’s scheduled
backup runs, the client save sets are written to a volume labeled for the appropriate save set
pool and the bootstrap and index save sets are written to a separate volume that has been
labeled for the index pool.

Copyright © 2013 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Module 13: Recovering a NetWorker Server 8
 This lesson covered the prerequisites for recovering a NetWorker server, including the
NetWorker bootstrap reports and backups of the media database, resource database, and
the client file indexes.

Copyright © 2013 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Module 13: Recovering a NetWorker Server 9
 This lesson covers the procedures for recovering the NetWorker server, including recovering
the NetWorker bootstrap data as well as the client file indexes.

Copyright © 2013 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Module 13: Recovering a NetWorker Server 10
 The slide summarizes the steps needed to perform a complete recovery of a NetWorker
server. The steps assume that the original server is no longer available and a new NetWorker
server is being configured. Several of the steps are discussed further on the following pages.
1. Before installing NetWorker, verify the functionality of the server it is being installed on.
2. To recover the bootstrap save set, NetWorker must already be installed. Thus, it is
necessary to perform a default installation of the NetWorker server. The original default
resource files will be installed, in addition to an empty media and jobs database.
3. After starting all the NetWorker daemons/services, the only customization you must
perform to the default NW installation is to create a device resource for the device
used to recover the bootstrap save set.
4. Use nsrdr to recover the bootstrap save set and optionally recover the client file
indexes.

Copyright © 2013 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Module 13: Recovering a NetWorker Server 11
 1. All NetWorker processes must be running prior to executing nsrdr.
2. Configure a NetWorker device resource and insert the volume containing the bootstrap
save set into the device.
3. Using nsrdr is the only method of recovering the bootstrap save set.
nsrdr is interactive, prompting for the SSID of the bootstrap save set being recovered.
It also prompts you to automatically recover the client file indexes.

Copyright © 2013 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Module 13: Recovering a NetWorker Server 12
 It is possible that corruption of the media database or resource files is severe enough that
the NetWorker processes cannot start. However, recovering the bootstrap save set with
nsrdr requires that NetWorker be running.
When nsrd starts, if the media database does not exist, it creates an empty one. Thus,
remove or rename a damaged /nsr/mm directory before starting NetWorker. nsrdr can
then be used to recover a recent backup of the media database.
Similarly, if corrupt resource files cause nsrd to abort during startup, simply remove or
rename the /nsr/res directory. When nsrd starts, if /nsr/res does not exist, nsrd
will create the same default set of resources that are configured when NetWorker server
software is initially installed. After configuring a device resource, you can then use nsrdr to
recover a recent backup of the resource directory.
Note: Renaming a corrupt /nsr/mm or /nsr/res directory is recommended instead of
removing it. After nsrdr has successfully recovered a good bootstrap save set, the
renamed directory can be removed.

Copyright © 2013 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Module 13: Recovering a NetWorker Server 13
 If you do not have the bootstrap report and therefore do not know on which volume the
most recent bootstrap save set resides, there are several methods of determining the
volume.
On a Windows NetWorker server, the Event Viewer should contain Application Log entries
with a category of Savegroup. View the most recent entry and look for information
pertaining to the bootstrap save set.
The daemon.raw file in the NetWorker server log directory may also contain an entry
showing which volume the most recent bootstrap save set was written to.
If the previous methods do not provide a volume name, another option is to use the
scanner command with the -B option to locate information about bootstrap save sets.
This method requires that you guess which volume contains the most recent bootstrap save
set and manually load it into a drive before running scanner.
scanner -B reads an entire volume and displays information about the most recent
bootstrap save set found. Depending on the size of the volume and the speed of the device,
this process can sometimes be lengthy. If the most recent bootstrap save set on the volume
is not the one you want, load another volume into the drive and run scanner again.
Note: scanner reads the volume directly without using nsrmmd. Therefore, it is not
necessary that NetWorker services be running.

Copyright © 2013 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Module 13: Recovering a NetWorker Server 14
 To recover client file indexes:
1. Verify that the NetWorker server daemons/services are running.
2. Execute the nsrck -L7 command.
If no client name is provided, nsrck recovers all client file indexes. It uses the media
database and resource files to determine the list of clients. When all CFIs are recovered, you
cannot control the order in which they are recovered.
To control the order in which client indexes are recovered or to restrict the recovery to
specific client indexes, one or more client_name arguments, separated by white space, must
be provided to nsrck.
nsrck automatically recovers a CFI to its most recent condition, recovering the last full
backup and any dependent save sets. The –t option, followed by a date in
nsr_getdate(3) format, can be used to recover a CFI to its condition at a previous point in
time. See the NetWorker Command Reference Guide for more information.
Important: When recovering an index that already contains entries, the entries being
recovered are MERGED with the existing entries.

Copyright © 2013 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Module 13: Recovering a NetWorker Server 15
 This lesson covered the procedures for recovering the NetWorker server, including recovering
the NetWorker bootstrap data as well as the client file indexes.

Copyright © 2013 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Module 13: Recovering a NetWorker Server 16
 This lesson covers the processes for recovering only specific subsets of the NetWorker server
control data, including the recovery of only the media database and only the resource
database.

Copyright © 2013 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Module 13: Recovering a NetWorker Server 17
 There may be situations where the entire NetWorker server does not need to be recovered.
The media database may be damaged, corrupted, or missing important information, but the
resource directory is perfectly fine. Conversely, NetWorker resources may have been
accidentally or maliciously deleted or modified, requiring that only the resource directory be
recovered.
Recovering either the media database or the resource directory still requires that you use
nsrdr to recover the entire bootstrap save set. However, tasks performed before or after
running nsrdr vary for different situations.
To insert missing volume or save set information into the media database, a command called
scanner is used to scan a volume and insert information directly into the media database
(and optionally, client file indexes) while reading the volume.
The conditions shown in the slide are discussed on the following pages.

Copyright © 2013 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Module 13: Recovering a NetWorker Server 18
 If the media database is fine and recovery of the resource directory is all that is desired,
perform the following steps:
1. Shut down NetWorker.
2. Rename the media database directory (/nsr/mm) BEFORE running nsrdr. This should
be done so that the existing media database will not be overwritten; it is possible that
additional save sets were generated via cloning or client-initiated backups after the most
recent bootstrap backup was performed. This information would be lost if the existing
media database was overwritten by the bootstrap save set.
3. Restart NetWorker.
4. Execute nsrdr. This recovers the /nsr/mm directory and places the recovered
resource files in /nsr/res.R.
5. Shut down all NetWorker daemons/services.
6. Remove the /nsr/mm directory that was recovered, because it is not needed, and
change the name of the original media database directory back to /nsr/mm.
7. Remove the /nsr/res directory that contains the corrupted resource files, and rename
/nsr/res.R to /nsr/res.
8. Restart NetWorker.

Copyright © 2013 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Module 13: Recovering a NetWorker Server 19
 If the media database is fine and recovery of the resource directory is all that is desired,
perform the following steps:
1. Shut down NetWorker.
2. Rename the media database directory (/nsr/mm) BEFORE running nsrdr. This should
be done so that the existing media database will not be overwritten; it is possible that
additional save sets were generated via cloning or client-initiated backups after the most
recent bootstrap backup was performed. This information would be lost if the existing
media database was overwritten by the bootstrap save set.
3. Restart NetWorker.
4. Execute nsrdr. This recovers the /nsr/mm directory and places the recovered
resource files in /nsr/res.R.
5. Shut down all NetWorker daemons/services.
6. Remove the /nsr/mm directory that was recovered, because it is not needed, and
change the name of the original media database directory back to /nsr/mm.
7. Remove the /nsr/res directory that contains the corrupted resource files, and rename
/nsr/res.R to /nsr/res.
8. Restart NetWorker.

Copyright © 2013 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Module 13: Recovering a NetWorker Server 20
 If recovery of the media database is all that is desired, recover the bootstrap save set and
then simply remove the /nsr/res.R directory. There is no need to shut down the
NetWorker services to remove the directory.
Important: Before using nsrdr to recover the entire media database, you should attempt
to correct the damage using nsrck –m.

Copyright © 2013 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Module 13: Recovering a NetWorker Server 21
 If recovery of the media database is all that is desired, recover the bootstrap save set and
then simply remove the /nsr/res.R directory. There is no need to shut down the
NetWorker services to remove the directory.
Important: Before using nsrdr to recover the entire media database, you should attempt
to correct the damage using nsrck –m.

Copyright © 2013 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Module 13: Recovering a NetWorker Server 22
 This lesson covered the processes for recovering only specific subsets of the NetWorker
server control data, including the recovery of only the media database and only the resource
database.

Copyright © 2013 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Module 13: Recovering a NetWorker Server 23
 In this lab you will:
• Perform a recovery of the bootstrap save set.
• Perform a recovery of the client file indexes.
• Verify that the recoveries were successful.

Copyright © 2013 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Module 13: Recovering a NetWorker Server 24
 This module covered the recovery of data residing on the NetWorker server. We looked at
how to recover NetWorker control data: the NetWorker resource database, media database
information, and client file index data.

Copyright © 2013 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Module 13: Recovering a NetWorker Server 25
 This course covered topics related to the installation, configuration, maintenance and
management of EMC NetWorker. Please take a moment to read the course summary.

Copyright © 2013 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Module 13: Recovering a NetWorker Server 26
Copyright © 2013 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Module 13: Recovering a NetWorker Server 27