TapeRedirector - Drive offline in BackupExec

Tape drive and auto-loader redirector over iSCSI

Moderators: anton (staff), art (staff), Max (staff), Anatoly (staff)

Blue407
Posts: 28
Joined: Tue Jul 29, 2014 8:59 pm

Tue Aug 05, 2014 2:42 pm

Hi

We have recently installed TapeRedirector for use in a Hyper-V VM. Works ok apart from occasionally it shows the tape drive as offline in BackupExec 2014.
Simply right clicking and selecting offline brings it back but unless I check it just before the backup jobs run at 17:00 they will fail :(

Any ideas/suggestions?
dpawlak
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Aug 05, 2014 6:19 pm

Tue Aug 05, 2014 6:24 pm

User avatar
anton (staff)
Site Admin
Posts: 4008
Joined: Fri Jun 18, 2004 12:03 am
Location: British Virgin Islands
Contact:

Tue Aug 05, 2014 9:20 pm

Good job, thank you!
Regards,
Anton Kolomyeytsev

Chief Technology Officer & Chief Architect, StarWind Software

Image
Blue407
Posts: 28
Joined: Tue Jul 29, 2014 8:59 pm

Wed Aug 06, 2014 9:25 am

Thanks for the responses guys.

I appreciate that the redirector software is designed to let you use multiple server VM's with one drive, I do not need that feature. Is there any way to make the reservation permanent so that only one VM can use it?
Might this stop the issue I am having?
User avatar
anton (staff)
Site Admin
Posts: 4008
Joined: Fri Jun 18, 2004 12:03 am
Location: British Virgin Islands
Contact:

Wed Aug 06, 2014 10:55 am

You cannot share tape. So if you have on VM with BackupExec and some software "pings" tape directly on host - VM will go off-line. It's not what we control. It's REDIRECTOR and not SHARE. Can you uninstall and stick with one backup appliance instance @ a time?
Blue407 wrote:Thanks for the responses guys.

I appreciate that the redirector software is designed to let you use multiple server VM's with one drive, I do not need that feature. Is there any way to make the reservation permanent so that only one VM can use it?
Might this stop the issue I am having?
Regards,
Anton Kolomyeytsev

Chief Technology Officer & Chief Architect, StarWind Software

Image
Blue407
Posts: 28
Joined: Tue Jul 29, 2014 8:59 pm

Wed Aug 06, 2014 11:11 am

anton (staff) wrote:You cannot share tape. So if you have on VM with BackupExec and some software "pings" tape directly on host - VM will go off-line. It's not what we control. It's REDIRECTOR and not SHARE. Can you uninstall and stick with one backup appliance instance @ a time?
Blue407 wrote:Thanks for the responses guys.

I appreciate that the redirector software is designed to let you use multiple server VM's with one drive, I do not need that feature. Is there any way to make the reservation permanent so that only one VM can use it?
Might this stop the issue I am having?
Do you mean can I install BackupExec on the host rather than in the VM and therefore have no need for the tape redirector software? I would rather not as I have had issues with BackupExec and needing to restart the server its hosted on, that why I want it in a VM. The last thing I need to be doing is restarting a Host and all of its VM's...

If I understand what you are saying is that something on the physical hosts server may try and talk to the attached tape drive and that takes it offline in the VM. Is there a way to disable this, have the redirector s/w lock the tape drive for its exclusive use?
I also seem to have found that changing the tape in the drive causes the issue - therefore it happens every single day when the tape is swapped.
User avatar
Bohdan (staff)
Staff
Posts: 435
Joined: Wed May 23, 2007 12:58 pm

Wed Aug 06, 2014 11:55 am

Hi,
please follow these steps to help us find what's wrong:
1) What tape library and SCSI/SAS controller do you use?
2) On StarWind (Tape Redirector) machine install and launch wireshark, set packet filter options ("tcp port 3260" if you are using StarWind v8 software, or "tcp port 33268"), start packet capturing, reproduce the issue with the tape, save wireshark log, zip and send us wireshark and BE (adamm.log) logs.
3) Make sure that your HBA card is supported for tape (http://www.symantec.com/connect/forums/ ... ve-offline).
Blue407
Posts: 28
Joined: Tue Jul 29, 2014 8:59 pm

Mon Aug 11, 2014 10:57 am

Bohdan (staff) wrote:Hi,
please follow these steps to help us find what's wrong:
1) What tape library and SCSI/SAS controller do you use?
2) On StarWind (Tape Redirector) machine install and launch wireshark, set packet filter options ("tcp port 3260" if you are using StarWind v8 software, or "tcp port 33268"), start packet capturing, reproduce the issue with the tape, save wireshark log, zip and send us wireshark and BE (adamm.log) logs.
3) Make sure that your HBA card is supported for tape (http://www.symantec.com/connect/forums/ ... ve-offline).
1 - Its a Dell Poweredge R720xd server with a Dell 6Gbps SAS HBA controller dedicated for the tape drive which is a Dell LTO5-140 drive.
2 - See attached
3 - Card is ok, same card was used for physical before the VM was created and worked ok.

To confirm, the problem only happens when you eject the tape from the drive. If you insert a new tape, as soon as the next job goes to run on that drive it goes offline. You need to then right click and put manually on-line again before any jobs will run against it. I tried the automated PS script and that hasn't helped.
So what I did to while producing these logfiles is:-
1. Start wireshark
2. Eject the tape
3. Insert new tape.
4. In BE, start a tape inventory job.
5. Drive unit in BE goes offline.
6. Stop wireshark and save log file.

I did not manually bring it back on-line.
User avatar
Bohdan (staff)
Staff
Posts: 435
Joined: Wed May 23, 2007 12:58 pm

Mon Aug 11, 2014 11:03 am

Thank you.
But I don't see the attachment...
Blue407
Posts: 28
Joined: Tue Jul 29, 2014 8:59 pm

Mon Aug 11, 2014 11:06 am

Bohdan (staff) wrote:Thank you.
But I don't see the attachment...
I tried it twice but didn't seem to actually upload it properly... any tips to make it work? or can I e-mail them directly to you?
Blue407
Posts: 28
Joined: Tue Jul 29, 2014 8:59 pm

Mon Aug 11, 2014 11:07 am

Wireshark log
User avatar
Bohdan (staff)
Staff
Posts: 435
Joined: Wed May 23, 2007 12:58 pm

Mon Aug 11, 2014 11:11 am

Blue407 wrote:Wireshark log
please e-mail it directly to beta-testing@ or support@
Blue407
Posts: 28
Joined: Tue Jul 29, 2014 8:59 pm

Mon Aug 11, 2014 11:15 am

Bohdan (staff) wrote:
Blue407 wrote:Wireshark log
please e-mail it directly to beta-testing@ or support@
Sent to beta-testing.
User avatar
Anatoly (staff)
Staff
Posts: 1675
Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2011 8:28 am
Contact:

Thu Aug 14, 2014 8:51 am

OK, looks like we`got to the bottom of the issue, and it looks like BE has some problems. I`ll create the sticky post today.
Best regards,
Anatoly Vilchinsky
Global Engineering and Support Manager
www.starwind.com
av@starwind.com
Blue407
Posts: 28
Joined: Tue Jul 29, 2014 8:59 pm

Thu Aug 14, 2014 9:01 am

Anatoly (staff) wrote:OK, looks like we`got to the bottom of the issue, and it looks like BE has some problems. I`ll create the sticky post today.
Great :) Please link it to this post so I can easily find it :)
Post Reply