topic Re: Rebuilding a complete filer in ONTAP Discussions

Rebuilding a complete filer

HENRICO_LE — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 06:04:56 GMT

Hello,

i wondered if i can rebuild a whole filer when the filer fails (fire or other causes) and NETAPP will deliver a whole new filer.

Can i use a config file, or database from the old filer to rebuild the new filer ?

Thanks.

Henrico

Re: Rebuilding a complete filer

thomas_glodde — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 08:25:29 GMT

Hi there,

in case of a whole system broken, it is not a service case, you would need your insurance to pay for the replacement Hardware. This would require a new purchase and a few weeks delivery time.

If you need to rebuild a netapp system from scratch you can do so with a recent autosupport email or with a backup of the vol0. Only thing missing from the autosupport emails are the cifs shares.

Kind regards

Thomas

Re: Rebuilding a complete filer

HENRICO_LE — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 08:31:16 GMT

Hi thomas,

Thanks for the quick answer.

Meaning, i have to rebuild the filer completelyby hand again with the autosupport as a guide ? Or are there mechanisms to let NETAPP do the job ?

Regards,

Henrico

Re: Rebuilding a complete filer

obrakmann — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 08:53:07 GMT

Have a look at the "config dump" and "config restore" commands.

Re: Rebuilding a complete filer

HENRICO_LE — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 09:20:29 GMT

I tried the config dump and restore commands yesterday but when i remove a complete vfiler , including its volumes , the config restore command cannot rebuild my volume and after that my vfiler.

Eventually what i, looking for is a Disaster Recovery, so i can write a procedure to be back online as soon as possible in event of total failure or crash

Re: Rebuilding a complete filer

obrakmann — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 10:18:47 GMT

Yes, config dump only creates a backup of the configuration, it does not recreate volumes or aggregates. It also only backups a subset of all the files in /etc.

Arguably the quickest way to be up again after a disaster is using a MetroCluster system. Short of that, if you are looking for a "one-click" solution, I'm afraid you'll have to write your own scripts to collect and restore the configuration.

Re: Rebuilding a complete filer

HENRICO_LE — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 10:21:34 GMT

So it IS possible to create ur own scripts out of a config dump , add line to it and run it on the CommandLine ?

Or am i not priviliged to run scripts ?

Re: Rebuilding a complete filer

obrakmann — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 10:58:39 GMT

No, that's not possible.

I meant scripts running on an external host that send queries to the filer (via SSH or ZAPI).

Re: Rebuilding a complete filer

thomas_glodde — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 11:10:47 GMT

You can run scripts on a netapp machine with the "source" command but it is usualy not recommended.

With the autosupport emails or the conifg dumps you could create a pre-build script yourself to automaticaly create configurations, aggregates and volumes, currently there is barely a way to automate that. Synergy might be able to Import an autoemail and generate an Output script but im not sure either.

Re: Rebuilding a complete filer

HENRICO_LE — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 12:50:45 GMT

Thanks !! for all ur info.

Kind regards,

Henrico