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NetVault Plug-in for FileSystem 12.3 - User Guide

Performing Incremental and Differential Backups

To perform Incremental or Differential Backups:
1
Start the backup job wizard.
2
In Job Name, specify a name for the job.
Assign a descriptive name that allows you to easily identify the job for monitoring its progress or restoring data. The job name can contain alphanumeric and non-alphanumeric characters, but it cannot contain non-Latin characters. There is no length restriction. However, a maximum of 40 characters is recommended on all platforms.
3
In the Selections list, select the Backup Selection Set that was used to perform the Full Backup.
4
In the Plugin Options list, select an existing Backup Options Set, or complete the following steps to create a new set:
a
Click Create New to open the File System Plugin Backup Options page.
b
Configure the following settings.
 
Option
Description

Backup Method

Under Backup Method, select the applicable option:

•
Standard: For native file system backups, select the option. It is the only available method on Linux and UNIX systems.
•
Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS): On Windows systems that support VSS, select this option to perform a VSS-based backup.
On Linux and UNIX systems, this option is not available.

For more information about backup methods, see About backup methods.

Backup Type

Under Backup Type, select the applicable option. For more information about backup types, see About backup types.

•
Incremental: Select this option to back up files that were created or modified since the last Full, Incremental, or Differential Backup.
•
Differential: Select this option to back up files that were created or modified since the last Full Backup.
•
Create Dump Type Backup: Select this check box to create Dump Type Incremental or Differential Backups.
With these backups you can only restore those files that were backed up in a particular Incremental or Differential Backup.
NOTE: Regular Incremental Backups are linked to the initial Full Backup and previous Incremental Backups. Before creating a data copy of a regular Incremental Backup, you must have created a copy of the initial Full Backup and the previous Incremental Backups in the backup sequence; otherwise, the Plug-in for Data Copy reports an error.

Dump Type Incremental Backups are standalone Incremental Backups. Such backups can be copied without creating a copy of any other backup in the backup sequence.

Ignore Archive Bit

On Windows, the archive bit helps to determine whether a file has been modified since the last backup. If the file has changed, the archive bit is set to 1, and if the file has not changed, the bit is set to 0. By default, the plug-in backs up a file for which the archive bit is set to 1, and clears the bit after the backup completes.

Regardless of the state of the archive bit, the plug-in backs up a file if certain information, such as the file size or the last modified time, has changed since the previous backup.

NOTE: The archive bit is not a clear indication that a file has changed. It only indicates that the bit has been set. Some applications intentionally modify the archive bit in a way that is not consistent with changes to the file.

To ignore the archive bit settings and use the file size, last update date, and other file attributes to back up a file, select the Ignore Archive Bit check box. This option can be useful in the following events:

•
A program running on the system is changing the state of the archive bit, causing the plug-in to back up unnecessary files and folders.
•
The plug-in is able to access the files for a backup, but cannot clear the archive bit settings after the backup completes because of access rights violation.

When you select the Ignore Archive Bit check box, the plug-in omits the files and directories for which only the file attributes such as Discretionary Access Control List (DACL), System Access Control List (SACL), and Owner Attribute have changed. If you want to back up such files, do not select this check box.

c
Configure the additional options that you want to use. For more information, see Backup options for Full Backup.
d
Click Save, and in the Create New Set dialog box, type a name for the set. Click Save to close the dialog box.
5
Select or create the Schedule Set, Target Set, and Advanced Options Set. For more information about these sets, see the Quest NetVault Backup Administrator’s Guide.
6
To submit the job for scheduling, click Save & Submit. You can monitor the job progress from the Job Status page and view the logs from the View Logs page.
To save the job definition without scheduling it, click Save. You can view, edit, or run this job from the Manage Job Definitions page. This job is not displayed on the Job Status page until you submit it.
For more information about Job Status, View Logs, and Manage Job Definitions, see the Quest NetVault Backup Administrator’s Guide.

Stopping a job

The NetVault Backup Plug‑in for FileSystem lets you stop a job at any point and resume it later from the same point. To have this ability, you must configure the job as restartable

For more information about this option, see the Performing Full Backups.

When you stop the job, the plug-in generates an index for all items that have been processed up to that point and writes the index to the backup media and NetVault Database. The job status is then set to Job Stopped. If the plug-in is writing a large backup index, the jobs status continues to be reported as “Writing to Media: Storing Backup Index” until the index is written. When you restart the job later, the plug-in runs an Incremental Backup job to back up the remaining files and folders.

 
* 
NOTE: The Stop and Restart methods do not work if you select multiple job instances simultaneously.
To stop a job:
1
In the Navigation pane, click Job Status.
2
In the list of jobs, select the job, and click Stop.
3
In the confirmation dialog box, click OK.
 
* 
NOTE: The stop action is not immediate. The job may continue for some time after you confirm that you want to stop backing up.

Multi-stream backups that are in progress may not be affected by the Stop action, as stopping a backup does not interrupt streaming data. Any data submitted to a stream during the backup job continues to back up. After the in-progress stream is complete, no new streams begin.

Restarting a job

The Restart method lets you resume a backup from the point the job was stopped. To have this ability, you must configure the job as restartable. When you restart a job, the plug-in runs an Incremental Backup job to back up the remaining files and folders.

 
* 
NOTE: The Stop and Restart methods do not work if you select multiple jobs simultaneously.
To restart a job:
1
In the Navigation pane, click Job Status.
2
In the list of jobs, select the job, and click Restart.

Performing Network Share Backups

Currently, the support for network share backups is limited to Windows network shares. Several problems might be encountered if you use this feature to back up CIFS-compatible shares, such as Samba, Snap Appliance Filers, or Mac OS X Shares. The problems include the inability to back up files with certain filename encoding or lengths, changing the filename while backing them up, and not restoring the permissions correctly.

The procedure for performing network share backups includes the steps outlined in the following sections:

•
Prerequisites
•
Configuring a network share
•
Configuring a login account for network share
•
Backing up network share data
Prerequisites

Before you start a Network Share Backup, verify that the following requirements are met:

•
Use the “soft” mount option: When backing up NFS shares, use the “soft” mount option for mount points.
When you use the “soft” mount option, the Plug‑in for FileSystem terminates an operation and reports an error when an NFS request is timed out. Thus, if the plug-in is trying to access a stale mount point, the operation is terminated after the request is timed out.
With the “soft” mount option, you can set the timeo=<value> and retrans=n options:
•
The retrans option determines the number of times a request is retried before an error is reported. The default value for retrans is three.
•
The timeo option specifies the number of seconds to wait before a retransmission is sent. The default value for timeo may vary depending on the OS, but it is typically 600 seconds.
After setting these options, we recommend that you perform a test by browsing a stale mount point (use the command ls <mount point>) to verify that the request is timed out after the specified interval.
For more information about the mount command and the available options, see the relevant OS documentation.
When you use the “hard” mount option, an NFS request is tried indefinitely, causing the plug-in to wait indefinitely.
If you use the “hard” mount option and the machine exporting the NFS share is not on the network, the plug-in job accessing the “stale” mount point stops responding. When this issue occurs, kill the nvfs process using kill -9 or end the process from the Windows Task Manager. The Job Manager Process associated with the job terminates after the timeout period (usually 300 seconds). Until this timeout has elapsed, you cannot use the Run now method to run the job because the instance is considered active until the Job Manager exits.
•
Grant “change” privileges for Incremental Backups: When performing Incremental Backups of network shares, the user that has been configured to log on to a particular share must be given “change” permissions to the shared folder. If you do not grant this permission, the job instance repeatedly backs up the modified files because the plug-in is unable to update the file attribute to indicate that the file has been backed up.
Configuring a network share

To back up a shared folder on a non-NetVault Backup Client, you must configure a network share on the NetVault Backup Client from which you want to perform the backup job.

To configure a network share:
1
Start the Backup Job Wizard, and click Create New next to the Selections list.
2
On the NetVault Backup Selections page, open the applicable client, and then open File System.
•
Select Network Shares and click Add Network Share.
3
In the Add New Network Share dialog box, specify file path for the shared drive in the following format:
\\<IP Address or Resolvable Network Name>\<Share Name>\
 
* 
NOTE: It is not recommended to execute Backup and Restore jobs on the hidden share locations. For example, \\<IP Address or Resolvable Network Name>\C$\, where C$ is the hidden share location.
4
Click Add to add the network share and close the dialog box.
Configuring a login account for network share
To configure a user account to log on to the network share:
1
On the NetVault Backup Selections page, select Network Shares, and click Connect As.
2
In the Connection Details dialog box, provide the following information:
•
Domain: Type the Windows Domain name for the system that contains the shared folders.
•
Username: Type a Domain Administrator user name. The network share backups must be performed using a Domain Administrator account to fully retrieve the file and directory permissions during a restore. A user belonging to the Administrators Group does not have the Domain Administrator privileges.
 
* 
NOTE: If a Non-Domain Administrator account is configured for backups, the file and directory permissions must be set manually after a restore.
•
Password: Type the password for the user account.
3
Click OK to save the connection details and close the dialog box.
Backing up network share data
To back up network share data:
1
On the NetVault Backup Selections page, double-click Network Shares.
2
Select the data that you want to back up.
•
Back up all network shares: Select the Network Shares node.
•
Back up individual shared folders: Select the check boxes corresponding to the items that you want to back up.
•
Back up individual items: Open the parent node. Browse through the directory tree, and locate the items that you want to back up.
To include a file or a directory, select the corresponding check box. When you select a parent node, all the child items within the node are automatically included in the backup.
•
Exclude child items: To exclude a file or directory within a selected parent node, click the corresponding check box to replace the check mark with a cross.
Click Save to create a Backup Selection Set.
3
On the Backup Job Wizard page, specify a name for the job.
4
Complete Step 4 through Step 6 in Performing Full Backups.
5
To perform Incremental or Differential Backups, see Performing Incremental and Differential Backups
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