Active IQ Unified Manager Discussions

QUESTION - Backing up a DFM database to a NAS share - supported?

emanuel
4,330 Views

Hello all

Do we support using the DFM backup functionaity with a NAS mount/share for DFM database backups only?

Thanks

10 REPLIES 10

rshiva
4,299 Views

Hi Emanuel,

I believe your question is something like: Can I direct the DFM database

backups to a NAS share? If that's the case you can try using the option

(I haven't tried using it though):

dfm options set databaseBackupDir=

On the side note: I hope you are already aware of the fact that we don't

support DFM database on NFS/CIFS share

Thanks and regards

Shiva Raja

emanuel
4,299 Views

Hey Shiva

This is for using the DFM backup functionality to store the DFM Databases "somewhere else."

Oh yes ... i avoid active databases on a NAS share/mount 🙂

We will give this a shot, thank you.

adaikkap
4,299 Views

CIFS share and FCP/iSCSI Based LUNs are supported for DB back, its only NFS which not supported.

Below is the link from the FAQ about CIFS db location.

http://now.netapp.com/NOW/knowledge/docs/DFM_win/rel40/html/faq/index.shtml#_9.15

So this says CIFS is supported for db location.

Regards

adai

adaikkap
4,299 Views

Just to qualify more.

Its only  placing the live DB in NFS share only is not supported (SYBASE limitation)

But making a backup copy of DB to just store it there is supported.

Regards

adai

PS:Thanks to Prasad S our DB expert from QA.

vladimirzhigulin
4,299 Views

I really doubt DFM supports NFS store as a backup destination:

  I just tried it on "dfm 4.0.2 (4.0.2)", where /storage-03/backup_dfm/ is NFS volume with 777 permissions and DFM host has root permissions on it:

==> access.log <==

10.154.82.110 - - [02/Aug/2011:13:53:40 +0200] "POST /dfm/option/set HTTP/1.1" 302 -

==> dfmbackup.log <==

Aug 02 13:53:40 [dfmserver: INFO]: [6399:0xeefffb90]: script_dir_size=0.

==> dfmcmd.log <==

Aug 02 13:53:40 [dfm: INFO]: [14405:0xf74b76c0]: Error: Could not get size of destination directory /storage-03/backup_dfm/. Please make sure this directory exists.

==> dfmserver.log <==

Aug 02 13:53:40 [dfmserver:ERROR]: [6399:0xeefffb90]: Error: Unable to confirm space available in /storage-03/backup_dfm/.

The same via CLI:

# dfm options set databaseBackupDir=/storage-03/backup_dfm/

Error: Could not get size of destination directory /storage-03/backup_dfm/. Please make sure this directory exists.

Could someont clarify that please?

Thanks,

Vladimir

sinhaa
4,299 Views

Vladimir,

     Adai is correct. DFM backups of the dfm database ( an not the live DFM DB) is supported on a NFS share. I successfully did it in dfm 4.0.2D2.

[root@XXXX mnt]# dfm backup create /mnt/Qt1/

Disabling Performance Advisor.

SQL Anywhere Backup Utility Version 10.0.1.3960

(9015 of 9012 pages, 100% complete)

Database backup completed

Waiting for existing writes to stop, which could take a few minutes.

Please be patient ...

Creating the archive ...

Verifying the archive ...

Enabling Performance Advisor.

Completed backup /mnt/Qt1/dfm_backup_2011-08-02_19-30-03.ndb.

[root@XXXX mnt]# mount|grep -i Qt

10.72.233.151:/vol/Ds1/Qt1 on /mnt/Qt1 type nfs (rw,addr=10.72.233.151)

[root@XXXX mnt]#

Why it didn't work for you? Now that is a different topic. Perhaps a case of stale NFS mount point.

Thanks,

Abhishek

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vladimirzhigulin
4,299 Views

Abhishek,

Thanks for your feedback! Could you please try:

dfm options set databaseBackupDir=/mnt/Qt1/

and show me output of it ?

Thanks,

Vladimir

sinhaa
4,299 Views

Vladimir,

Setting up the default databaseBackupDir to the NFS mount point.

[root@XXXX mnt]# dfm options set databaseBackupDir=/mnt/Qt1/

Changed archive backup destination directory to /mnt/Qt1/.

NOTE: You must move all of the database backups in current directory to the new directory.

Now starting a backup without any arguments i.e. backup should be created at the default location.

[root@XXX mnt]# dfm backup create

Disabling Performance Advisor.

SQL Anywhere Backup Utility Version 10.0.1.3960

(9063 of 9061 pages, 100% complete)

Database backup completed

Waiting for existing writes to stop, which could take a few minutes.

Please be patient ...

Creating the archive ...

Verifying the archive ...

Enabling Performance Advisor.

Completed backup /mnt/Qt1/dfm_backup_2011-08-02_20-42-04.ndb.

[root@XXX mnt]#

Now my NFS mount point has 2 backups. One created earlier before the default was set, and now after setting the default.

[root@XXX Qt1]# ll

total 60452

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 30701595 Aug  2 19:52 dfm_backup_2011-08-02_19-30-03.ndb

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 30943105 Aug  2  2011 dfm_backup_2011-08-02_20-42-04.ndb

[root@XXX Qt1]#

[root@XXX Qt1]# dfm version

dfm 4.0.2 (4.0.2)

[root@XXX Qt1]#

So it works as expected. Is it not working for you? If not this needs some insight

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reide
4,299 Views

I know in a Windows DFM Server environment, if we want to back-up the DFM DB to a CIFS share we have to change the user account that the DFM services run as.  The services must run using an account that has permission to write to the CIFS share.  Could it be that Vladimir is experiencing something similar when attempting to write to an NFS export?   I would check the permissions of the NFS export and make certain the account running the DFM services has permissions to write to it.  I would also test the NFS export manually using the account that DFM services run under.

vladimirzhigulin
3,618 Views

DFM host has root access to the NFS share, I tried UNIX 777 permissions as well - it didn't work either. On Linux DFM runs as "root" and being root I can read / write the NFS share.

Actually "dfm backup create /storage-03/backup_dfm/" works perfect, I'm just not enable to setup default location for backups on NFS share.

I created a ticket for NetApp to resolve this issue, will keep you posted.

Vladimir

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