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35 Posts

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December 8th, 2022 07:00

Stubborn Clone Retention Time - Savesets won't delete

EMC Networker 9.1 - Problem with our weekly backups.

We have set FULL weekly backups with 2 weeks retention. Recently I noticed the weekly disk volume (where the backups are saved) is getting almost out of space.

Checking the Volume Save Sets I see old Weekly backups with Save Times from 7 months ago still present with a Browsable status, even though their Clone Retention Time is correct (it is 2 weeks after the Save Time).

I tried to change the retention time manually with Change Expiration and selecting Expire the selected save sets NOW, then I ran the following commands to scan the volumes and clean space:

mminfo -q "type=data domain,type=adv_file" -r volume -xcl > volume.lst
for /f %A in (volume.lst) do @nsrim -X -V %A
for /f %A in (volume.lst) do @nsrstage -C -V %A

That didn't do anything, no space was freed and the Savesets were still present.

Next I tried the scanner command:  scanner -m W:\Weeklybackups

It didn't free any space, in addition, I noticed that the scanner commands changed the Close Retention Time for ALL the savesets to 2 weeks in the future!

How do I resolve this, how do I expire and delete old savesets?

2.4K Posts

December 9th, 2022 14:00

You should better know whether you clone at all. Only you know your configuration. But of course you might verify whether you have any active clone pool and if there are volumes labeled and used for that pool. Last not least your could also use mminfo and also report "copies". It will tell you the number of instances for the save set.

 

Each save set has a cloneid (it is basically the nsavetime timestamp, as it is unique). So if you do not see a cloneid, it might be due to the fact that you copied my command ... incl. my typo (cloneceid instead of cloneid). Sorry.

 

If you want to query the save sets of a specific volume, just use

   mminfo -q "volume=vol_name" -r ....

 

The mminfo command is one of the best described commands in NW. You will find the full set of parameters in the Command Line Reference manual. You must not necessarily have the whole content in your mind but you should understand the basics how to use the command.

And do not forget - mminfo just queries the media index, it does not change the content. So please familiarize with the command to learn it ... it does not harm.

 

2.4K Posts

December 8th, 2022 15:00

Of course it is hard to verify why such a situation occurred but it is pretty easy to overcome it.

The procedure is pretty easy:

1. Use mminfo to find out the appropriate ssid  + cloneid

2. Use nsrmm -d -S to delete the appropriate save sets

So your commands should look like these:

mminfo -q "type=data domain,type=adv_file,clretent>=mm/dd/yyyy" -r "ssid,clonceid" -xc/ > ssid.lst
for /f %A in (ssid.lst) do @nsrmm -d -S %A

Be careful:

  - Verify that the file ssid.lst only contains entries in the format ssid/cloneid (no header)

  - ONLY if you do not have clones, you may omit the cloneid. Otherwise nsrmm will delete ALL instances of the save set (on all volumes)!

  - Do not forget that you might need to initiate an immediate cleanup process on the DD for an instant release of disk space.

 

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35 Posts

December 9th, 2022 06:00

Hi Bingo, thanks for your reply, I know I can always count on you

Regarding this command:

mminfo -q "type=data domain,type=adv_file,clretent>=mm/dd/yyyy" -r "ssid,clonceid" -xc/ > ssid.lst

1. Does it query all backups that took place after a certain date? I need to pull backups that took place before a certain date, do I simply change the >= to <= ?

2. We have 3 adv_file disk volumes: Daily.001, Weekly.001, Monthly.001. How do I restrict the search only to Weekly.001?

So sum this up, I need the command to look for all the SSIDs in Weekly.001 that are older than 01-Sep-2022 and then delete them.

Ps. The Cloneid doesn't produce anything, meaning we have no clones, right?

Thanks again

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35 Posts

December 9th, 2022 06:00

After some digging I found the command as such:

mminfo -q "type=data domain,type=adv_file,volume=Weekly.001,savetime<=06/29/2022" -r "ssid" -xc/

Can I ask you, what's the most comprehensive MMINFO guide out there. For example, non of the guides I search even mention clretent, why is it missing?

December 19th, 2022 09:00

None of the guides? No idea which "guides" you sifted through but the Dell EMC NetWorker Command Reference Guide for each NW version states how to use mminfo and states all attribute names one can use, amongst which is clretent.

attribute name          value range         width           description
clretent                      time                       9               The clone retention time is the time
limit that the clone instance will remain recoverable in the media database.

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5 Posts

January 31st, 2023 10:00

Hi 

Sorry for this delay

As per my guess u have to use nsrim -x to delete all the expired data by manual, also this command take 24hrs to change the sumflag into CE. But it's delete all the expired data immediately. Try this once you I'll get the results

Regards 

Shibu

2 Posts

March 4th, 2023 02:00

 

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