topic Re: VOLCOPY: Could not connect to filer in ONTAP Discussions

VOLCOPY: Could not connect to filer

RICHARDDU — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 06:26:17 GMT

Hi,

Thanks is advance for your help.

I'm trying to volcopy from one filer to another using the following command

vol copy start sourcefiler:source_vol targetfiler:dest_vol

when I run the above command the following output is shown:

Cannot retreive the IPv6 address for the filer gb-ss02

This can be a long-running operation. Use Control - C (^C) to interrupt.

Copy Volume: source_vol on machine SOURCEFILER_IP to Volume: dest_vol

Then after 20- 30 seconds the following output is show:

VOLCOPY: Could not connect to filer SOURCEFILER_IP.

VOLCOPY: Cannot Init Input, aborting

I have added both filers into the '/etc/hosts.equiv' of each filer.

Not sure where to go from here, so any help would be great.

Thanks,

Richard

Re: VOLCOPY: Could not connect to filer

scottgelb — Thu, 24 May 2012 18:09:03 GMT

-S before sourcefiler

Re: VOLCOPY: Could not connect to filer

RICHARDDU — Thu, 24 May 2012 18:14:08 GMT

Thank You for your quick answer but It had the same result.

Re: VOLCOPY: Could not connect to filer

scottgelb — Thu, 24 May 2012 18:19:55 GMT

Are you running the copy on the target systems?

Re: VOLCOPY: Could not connect to filer

RICHARDDU — Thu, 24 May 2012 21:13:26 GMT

I was running it on the source filer

but i tried the command on the target filer

vol copy start Source_Filer:Source_Vol Destination_Vol

I get the following result

Source_Filer: Connection refused

VOLCOPY: Could not connect to filer Source_Filer.

VOLCOPY: Cannot Init Input, aborting

Seems to be some sort of access issue?

Re: VOLCOPY: Could not connect to filer

scottgelb — Fri, 25 May 2012 06:29:32 GMT

has to be authentication... if you enable rsh "options rsh.enable on" on both controllers then run the command does it work? Disable rsh when done.

Re: VOLCOPY: Could not connect to filer

RICHARDDU — Fri, 25 May 2012 09:03:07 GMT

Yes tht was the problem. Thank you

now there is another issue...

Incompatible snap mirror or copy source version. Aborting

I looked it up

Cause

The tape contained an incompatible backup image. The backup image I generated from a newer version of data ontap.

Corrective action

Use the correct ontap version to restore the backup image

Is this the end of the line or is there a workaround?

Re: VOLCOPY: Could not connect to filer

scottgelb — Fri, 25 May 2012 09:08:09 GMT

What ontap versions are on each system?

Sent from my iPhone 4S

Re: VOLCOPY: Could not connect to filer

RICHARDDU — Fri, 25 May 2012 09:14:49 GMT

Source filer is 8.1RC2

Target is 7.3.5.1p3

Re: VOLCOPY: Could not connect to filer

aborzenkov — Fri, 25 May 2012 09:17:42 GMT

That won’t work. vol copy is block-for-block copy and requires target version to be the same (or possibly higher).

User ndmpcopy instead. It won’t preserve existing snapshots though.

Re: VOLCOPY: Could not connect to filer

RICHARDDU — Fri, 25 May 2012 11:21:31 GMT

Ok I managed to get this running I transferred files from the lower ontap to the higher and it worked fine thank you for your help.

The destination had a slightly higher byte count after the copy.

It was 57344 bytes higher on the target, which is

Minimal but I just like to know if this is normal?

I see some new files eg .vtoc_internal but these are 0bytes.

Re: VOLCOPY: Could not connect to filer

scottgelb — Fri, 25 May 2012 14:15:50 GMT

Same rules as snapmirror and same as a snapmirror initialize for vol copy.

Should be fine. Volume table of contents. All snapshots should be there too if you used -S

Sent from my iPhone 4S

Re: VOLCOPY: Could not connect to filer

RICHARDDU — Tue, 29 May 2012 08:11:17 GMT

Thank you for your help it's worked perfectly. 🙂