NDMP backup on Solaris dies unexpectedly when building index for files with foreign language name (80435)

Date: May 08
Product & Version: NetVault 8u2
OS Version: Solaris 9 (Sparc)
Module & Version: NDMP 7
Application version: N/A

Symptoms:
When backing up a volume containing file names with foreign language characters, you might see the backup failing during the index build at the very end with an error of
Background 2008/04/15 14:41:17 31 Data Plugin xxx Write index tree
Error 2008/04/14 10:03:41 31 Jobs xxx Child Process died unexpectedly
Error 2008/04/14 10:03:41 31 Jobs xxx Fatal error: Backup Died Unexpectedly
Error 2008/04/14 10:03:41 31 Jobs xxx Job Status: Backup Failed

Additional, the same job might log an information message of
Information 2008/04/15 14:34:42 31 Data Plugin xxx 'Use UTF-8 Conversions' filer option is set but 'Request Unicode File Information' backup option has not been selected, please check'

Reason:
Trace will show that the plugin is dying while trying to convert a file name with a foreign language character. A guard band corruption occurs and the process manager terminates the plugin.

This is caused by incorrect / incomplete settings for the Unicode translation of foreign language characters. A fault (NCG-323) has been opened to prevent the plugin from crashing when configured incorrectly, but a correct configuration will always remain necessary.

More information on the subject can be found in solution 3621, "Error backing up, restoring or displaying foreign language characters in NDMP plugin".

Ensure that you are using the latest NetVault and NDMP plugin versions (i.e. NetVault 8u2 and higher and NDMP Plugin 7 and higher), as older versions have code issues in the same area.

- When adding your filer, ensure that you tick the "Use UTF-8 conversions" option.
- Configure the NDMP Plugin to use the correct local codepage for UTF-8 conversions. For this, right-click on the "NDMP Client" node in a backup window, select "Configure" and enter the correct local codepage for "Codepage for UTF-8 conversions" on the "NDMP Backup Configuration" tab.
- When creating a backup job, ensure to always tick "Request Unicode File Information" on the "Backup Options" tab.

A list of acceptable codepages can be found on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_encoding. For example, in order to be able to display German umlauts you would specify the entry "ISO-8859-1" in the plugin configuration.