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33 Posts
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3211
October 30th, 2017 06:00
Skipping files during a "Save Set" recovery
Good day,
We are using networker 8.1.
We are currently running a save set recovery and applying an incremental backup. During the restore, we want to avoid overwriting a large outlook PST file which makes the restore rather long and we are able to retrieve PST files locally on the users PCs therefor we don't really need it. Since there is no option that I am aware of that allows me to exclude a file or directory from the save set recovery, we chose to be prompted for each file and chose not to overwrite this perticular file. However when I chose the option to discard the restore file and not overwrite the current file, the networker client locks up for a really long time. Currently, it's been locked up for over an hour since I've skipped a 3.7 gig pst file. What is happening when I chose to skip a file, why is there such a long delay? On a previous restore, we skipped a 63 MB PST file and it took almost 20 minutes for the system to respond again. Seem to me that skipping or overwriting the file will take the same amount of time, is that correct?
Thanks in advance to whomever takes the time to read this and help out
wlee
263 Posts
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November 8th, 2017 10:00
According to the NetWorker Command Reference guide, the recover command has a "-e" parameter that can be used to exclude files from recoveries. It is described as follows:
– e exclude file
Specifies an exclude file that contains a list of all the paths to exclude from the recovery. The exclude file can be an absolute or relative path for browsable or save-set based recovery. The exclude file must be an absolute path for directed recovery. If the exclude file lists a valid directory path to exclude but does not list file entries from the directory, then the directory is recovered along with the files in it. The recovery total in the exclude file report will account for this directory exclusion.
The following wildcards are supported for pattern matching in the list of files to exclude. Except for the ** wildcard, any of the wildcards can appear anywhere in the file path.
** - Specifies a directory and all the files and subdirectories within it.
For example, the pattern C:\globe\** (on Windows) or /usr/globe/** (on UNIX) in the exclude file specifies the globe directory and all its subdirectories and files for exclusion from the recovery. The ** wildcard must appear at the end of the file path.
* - Matches any string of characters in a path.
For example, the pattern C:\globe\* (on Windows) or /usr/globe/* (on UNIX) in the exclude file specifies all the subdirectories and files within the globe directory.
Similarly, the pattern /a*/globe/* specifies any directory that starts with the letter a in the root directory and contains the globe directory within it. All the subdirectories and files within the globe directory are also excluded from the recovery.
[..] - Matches any single character within a range, where the range is specified with a dash (-).
For example, the pattern globe[0-9] specifies globe, followed by a number between 0 and 9, inclusive.
The pattern globe[adrs] specifies globe, followed by any single character within the brackets.
? - Matches any single character in a path.
For example, the pattern C:/gl?be/ (on Windows) or /usr/gl?be/ (on UNIX) in the exclude file specifies all the files and directories with the name gl?be, where ? is any single character.
bingo.1
2.4K Posts
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October 30th, 2017 09:00
You cannot exclude files during a save set recovery. However, there are 2 other methods you can use:
- recover the save set to another tenp directory and transfer your wanted files later
- tell NW exactly what to recover using the option '-a pathname':
recover -S ssid -a the_exact_full_pathname
NW will read the save set but only recover what you told him to retrieve.
Zuka007
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33 Posts
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November 8th, 2017 06:00
Thanks for taking the time to reply to my question. I was able to perform a "Directed Recovery" and select a different destination folder but if I use the "NetWorker User" client I have not figured out how to divert the restore of a "Save Set Recover" to another location. I'm not sure that you can if using the client(NetWorker User), but I'm still learning a lot and it's possible I'm not going about this correctly. I know I should be using the command line more and perhaps that is the difference.
In either case, I was able to successfully restore what I needed but I did find it annoying that if I skip a file during a restore it still takes as long to skip the file as it does to recover it...
Thanks for your reply!
Zuka007
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November 8th, 2017 07:00
The method you suggested is great, but unfortunately there were way too many files to specify which would have resulted in much too much effort. In other words, I needed 99% of the files and only needed to skip a few, so I would have had thousands of files to list off.
bingo.1
2.4K Posts
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November 8th, 2017 07:00
You can't. Directed recoveries are always index based.
What you observe is possible.
If you use the method I mentioned, NW just reads the whole save stream and recovers when the file() occurs.
And this of course could happen at the end of the save set.
wlee
263 Posts
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November 8th, 2017 10:00
It is also possible to specify files to exclude when using the recover GUI. There is a recover options that allow you to specify files to exclude.
Zuka007
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November 8th, 2017 11:00
I believe that this option allows you to explicitly restore the paths of files and directories rather than exclude them. It's not the same.
bingo.1
2.4K Posts
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November 8th, 2017 11:00
Hi Wallace,
thank you for pointing that out. You always learn from/with NetWorker.
I briefly looked throught the manpages - the first time '-e' has been mentioned was for NW 8.0.
And here is the appropriate option for the GUI (winworkr.exe):