Veritas NetBackup™ 8.0 Troubleshooting Guide

Output from the NetBackup support utility (nbsu)

The NetBackup support utility (nbsu) writes the information it gathers to text files in the following directory:

/usr/openv/netbackup/bin/support/output/nbsu
    /hostname_timestamp

install_path\NetBackup\bin\support\output\nbsu
    \hostname_timestamp

The NetBackup environment where nbsu runs determines the particular files that nbsu creates. nbsu runs only those diagnostic commands that are appropriate to the operating system and the NetBackup version and configuration. For each diagnostic command that it runs, nbsu writes the command output to a separate file. As a rule, the name of each output file reflects the command that nbsu ran to obtain the output. For example, nbsu created the NBU_bpplclients.txt by running the NetBackup bpplclients command and created the OS_set.txt file by running the operating system's set command.

Each output file begins with a header that identifies the commands that nbsu ran. If output from more than one command was included in the file, the header identifies the output as an "internal procedure."

The following are the actual commands and output after the header.

Example nbsu output file: ipconfig command (excerpt)

------------------- Network ipconfig information report ------------
---------------------------- Command used --------------------------
> "C:\WINDOWS\system32\ipconfig" /all

Windows IP Configuration

    Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : host1
    Primary Dns Suffix . . .  . . . . :
    Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
    IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
    WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
    DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : company.com

The following is an example of part of the nbsu output file for the bpgetconfig command.

Example nbsu output file: bpgetconfig command (excerpt)

-------------- NetBackup bpgetconfig information report -------------
---------- nbsu diagnostic name and internal procedure used ---------
NBU_bpgetconfig - NBU_get_bpgetconfig_info
--------------------------- Command Used --------------------------
# /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/admincmd/bpgetconfig -g nbmedia00  -L
Client/Master = Media Host
NetBackup Client Platform = Linux, RedHat2.6.18
NetBackup Client Protocol Level = 7.7.0
Product = NetBackup
Version Name = 7.7
Version Number = 770000
NetBackup Installation Path = /usr/openv/netbackup/bin
Client OS/Release = Linux 2.6.18-194.el5

--------------------------- Command Used --------------------------
# /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/admincmd/bpgetconfig
SERVER = nbmaster00 
SERVER = nbmedia00 
TRUSTED_MASTER
KNOWN_MASTER
MASTER_OF_MASTERS
USEMAIL =
BPBACKUP_POLICY = any
BPBACKUP_SCHED = any

If the executed command returned a non-zero status, an EXIT STATUS header indicates the status. For example:

----------------------- EXIT STATUS = 227 -------------------------

As part of the internal processing of each command that a diagnostic command runs, nbsu redirects each command's STDERR to an internal file. If the command writes information to STDERR, nbsu captures this information and includes a STDERR header along with the information. For example:

----------------------------- STDERR ------------------------------
bpclient: no entity was found (227)

If a supported archive program is available on the host where nbsu runs, nbsu bundles its output files into an archive file. If a supported compression utility is available, nbsu compresses the archive file. Otherwise, the individual output files remain unarchived and uncompressed.

An example of a compressed archive file that nbsu created is as follows:

/usr/openv/netbackup/bin/support/output/nbsu/host1_master_yyyymmdd_
164443/host1_master_20060814_164443.tar.gz

where host1 is the name of the host on which nbsu ran, and master indicates that the host is a NetBackup master server. The date is embedded in the file name in the yyyymmdd format.

nbsu supports tar for archive and gzip for compression. Veritas may add support for other archive and compression utilities in the future. For an up-to-date list of supported archive and compression utilities, run the nbsu -H command on your installed version of NetBackup.

If no archive utility is installed on your system, use the -xml option of the nbsu command. This option lets you create a single .xml file in place of the individual output files. The single .xml file contains all the diagnostic information that the individual files contain. Use this command to conveniently bundle nbsu output for Veritas technical support.