NetVault Plug-in for FileSystem 11.0

Additional notes Performing Incremental and Differential Backups Stopping a job Restarting a job Performing Network Share Backups Performing System State Backups

Restoring data

Restoring data using the plug-in Searching for files in savesets Viewing media list Renaming and relocating data during restore Restoring data to an alternate client Restoring System State Backups

About System State restore System State restore considerations Supported restore methods for Active Directory Supported restore methods for SYSVOL Directory Prerequisites Restoring System State data Restoring cluster database on Windows 2008 Additional considerations for domain controllers

Troubleshooting

Common errors

Configuring default settings

To configure the default settings for Plug‑in for FileSystem

Start the Backup Job Wizard, and click Create New next to the Selections list. Open the NetVault Backup Server or Client node. Select File System, and in the Actions list, click Configure.

You can also configure the default settings from the Change Settings page. In the Navigation pane, click Change Settings. On the Configuration page, click the Server Settings or Client Settings, and then on the Settings page, click Plugin Options.

Under File System Plugin, configure the following settings.

Table 1. Default settings for Plug‑in for FileSystem

Option

Description

Display Mapped Drives under Network Share

This check box is selected by default. If you do not want to display mapped network drives under the Network Share node, clear this check box.

This option is applicable only to Windows-based clients.

Exclusion List Settings

An Exclusion List is a text file that contains a list of files and directories that you want to exclude during a backup or restore job. The Plug‑in for FileSystem supports name-based and path-based exclusion lists.

Exclusion lists are added to a client, and apply to all backup and restore jobs performed on that client. For more information about exclusion lists, see Exclusion lists.

To specify an exclusion list for a backup or restore job, type the file path for the exclusion list in the appropriate box:

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Backup Exclusion List — Name Based Patterns: Name-based exclusion list for backup jobs.

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Backup Exclusion List — Path Based Patterns: Path-based exclusion list for backup jobs.

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Restore Exclusion List — Name Based Patterns: Name-based exclusion list for restore jobs.

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Restore Exclusion List — Path Based Patterns: Path-based exclusion list for restore jobs.

To remove an exclusion list, clear the corresponding box.

Backup Windows File Short Names

To back up short name attribute for selected files, select this check box.

Restore Windows File Short Names

To restore short name attributes for selected files, select this check box.

This option is only applicable to Windows clients. To use this option, you must select the Backup Windows File Short Names option during backup.

Memory Cache Settings for Analyzing Directories and Entries

The memory cache settings affect the “restore preparation phase.” During this phase, the plug-in analyzes the saveset and examines the index to determine what it needs to restore. This information allows the plug-in to read a saveset efficiently and restore directory structures for the selected entries. The plug‑in retrieves the target items from the saveset and stores them in a temporary file that is read in the memory. If the list is too large (for example, includes millions of files), the entries are moved to the disk as the items are processed.

The memory cache options control the number of items that can be read from the disk at any one time. If more entries are read at any one time and more memory is allocated to store them, the speed of processing (and thus the speed of restore) increases.

When the restore includes many files and directories (for example, millions of files) or deep directory structures, it is beneficial to increase the memory cache for the directories and entries.

These settings improve the accessing of the index file and not the actual data transfer rate. The memory settings are specific to an individual client, and include the following:

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Initial Size of Memory Cache when Analyzing Directories to Restore: The minimum memory cache available to the plug-in for analyzing directories that you want to restore. The default value is 1MB.

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Maximum Size of Memory Cache when Analyzing Directories to Restore: The maximum memory cache available to the plug-in for analyzing directories that you want to restore. The default value is 10MB.

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Initial Size of Memory Cache when Analyzing Entries to Restore: The minimum memory cache available to the plug-in for analyzing entities that you want to restore. The default value is 1MB.

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Maximum Size of Memory Cache when Analyzing Entries to Restore: The maximum memory cache available to the plug-in for analyzing entities that you want to restore. The default value is 10MB.

Cluster Backup Directory

In a Windows cluster setup, specify the shared location to store the cluster database backup file. The format to specify the directory is:

\\<machine name>\<share name>

Delete Cluster Backup File From Disk after Backup

After a cluster backup completes, the plug-in deletes the cluster database backup file copied to the shared location.

If you do not want to delete the database backup file, clear this check box.

Reset Access Times

By default, the plug-in does the following during backups:

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Updates the Access Time attribute for all files that are backed up.

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Uses the Change Time attribute to select files and directories for Incremental and Differential Backups.

When you select the Reset Access Times check box, the plug-in does the following:

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Resets the Access Time attribute for all files included in a backup after the file is accessed.

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Uses the Modify Time attribute to select files and directories for Incremental and Differential Backups.

NOTE: On Linux and UNIX systems, resetting Access Time updates the Change Time attribute. Therefore, the plug-in uses Modify Time for Incremental and Differential Backups instead of Change Time.

When Modify Time is used, the files and directories with attribute-only changes are not selected for Incremental and Differential Backups on Linux OS. Examples of attribute changes include:

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Changing file mode or permissions

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Changing file owner

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Changing file group

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Hard-linking to the file

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Changing the file ACL

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Changing the extended attributes

These changes update the Change Time (inode ctime) and are included in a backup if the Reset Access Times check box is not selected.

NOTE: Currently, the plug-in cannot reset Access Time on file systems that save file times in sub-second form. These file systems include NTFS, ext4, ZFS, and HFS (Mac OS X 10.6). However, the plug-in continues to use the Modify Time attribute instead of the Change Time for Incremental and Differential Backups.

Use VSS to Backup Registry if Available

This option allows the plug-in to use VSS to back up the registry during a System State backup. It is selected by default, and only supported on the Windows OS. To use this option, VSS must be installed and running on the target clients.

When this check box is not selected or VSS is not installed or available on a client, the plug-in uses Win32 API for registry backups.

NOTE: On Windows 2003, if a system contains many registry entries, the OS may take one to two minutes to return the Win32 API call. This delay may lock out the other processes and cause process failures and loss of network processes. Using VSS for registry backups resolves this issue. This problem may not be observed on Windows 7 or Windows 2008. Windows XP does not support the VSS Registry Writer. On this OS, the plug‑in ignores this option and uses Win32 API for registry backups

Maximum File System Read

This option determines the maximum amount of data that can be read at a time. The value must be specified in KB. The default value is zero (0). If you do not want to set a maximum value for the file reads, use the default value.

NOTE: Changing the default values for Maximum File System Read or Write options could result in a performance degradation. The backup and restore speeds may slow considerably. You should change these settings only when the network constraints demand it.

Maximum File System Write

This option determines the maximum amount for data that can be written at a time. The value must be specified in KB. The default value is zero (0). If you do not want to set a maximum value for file writes, use the default value.

Click OK or Apply to save the settings.

Exclusion lists

This section includes the following topics:

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About exclusion lists

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Exclusion list considerations

About exclusion lists

An exclusion list is a text file that contains a list of files and directories that you want to exclude during a job. You can use any text editor to create this list. After creating the file, save it on the client to which you want to apply the list. On Linux and UNIX, save the file in multi-byte text format. On Windows, save the file in Unicode text format.


	NOTE: An exclusion list is applied to all backup and restore jobs performed on the client.

Exclusion list types

The Plug‑in for FileSystem supports two types of exclusion lists.

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Name-based exclusion list: Use this list to omit files and directories that match the given name pattern. To exclude a directory and its contents, the path must be terminated with a forward slash character (“/”) on Linux and UNIX and a backslash character (“\”) on Windows.

Example

# Name-based Exclusion List

This exclusion list excludes the following directories and files during a backup:

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All files with the extension “.htm”

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Any directory named “tmp”

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A specific file named “mp3_player.exe”

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Any file with the extension “.mp3”

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Any file named “install?.exe,” where “?” is any single character

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All files that begin with the letters “test” (it excludes files such as “testdata.doc” and “test1.txt,” but does not exclude a file named “atest1.txt”)

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Path-based exclusion list: Use this list to omit files and directories in the specified path. To exclude a directory and its contents, the path must be terminated with a forward slash character (“/”) on Linux and UNIX and a backslash character (“\”) on Windows.

Example

# Path-based Exclusion List

C:\Application\Data\Test\

C:\Program Files\Microsoft\

This exclusion list excludes the following directories and files during a job:

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All contents of the directory C:\Application\Data\Test

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All contents of the directory C:\Program Files\Microsoft

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All contents of the directory C:\WINNT\system32

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All contents of the directory D:\Work in Progress

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All files with the extension “.txt” in the directory D:\Files

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All directories within D:\ that begin with the characters Database

Exclusion list considerations

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The Plug‑in for FileSystem supports the following special characters in an exclusion list.

Table 2. Special characters in exclusion lists
Character	Description
/	Used to terminate Linux and UNIX file paths.
\	Used to terminate Windows file paths.
?	Used to match any one character.
!n	Used to insert new line.
!r	Used to insert carriage return.
!t	Used to insert tab.
!f	Used to insert form feed.
!b	Used to insert backspace,
!	Used to escape any special character that follows.
!!	Used to specify ! character in the filename or path.