Best Practices › Best Practices for Configuring Data Mover Switches

Best Practices for Configuring Data Mover Switches

UNIX and Linux Data Mover contains switches that let you customize how Arcserve Backup behaves in various conditions.

To customize the values of the switches, open the following configuration file on the data mover server:

/opt/CA/ABcmagt/agent.cfg

The following example describes the syntax for configuring switches for UNIX and Linux Data Mover in the agent.cfg configuration file.

Note: If necessary, you can add switches into this section.

[260]
#[Data Mover]
NAME		ABdatmov 
VERSION	16.5
HOME		/opt/CA/ABdatamover
ENV		CA_ENV_DEBUG_LEVEL=5
#ENV		CA_ENV_NDMP_LOG_DEBUG=1
ENV		AB_OS_TYPE=RHEL_2.6.18_I686
ENV		DATAMOVER_HOME=/opt/CA/ABdatamover
ENV		LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/CA/ABdatamover/lib:/opt/CA/ABcmagt:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
ENV		SHLIB_PATH=/opt/CA/ABdatamover/lib:/opt/CA/ABcmagt:$SHLIB_PATH
ENV		LIBPATH=/opt/CA/ABdatamover/lib:/opt/CA/ABcmagt:$LIBPATH
BROWSER	NDMPServer 
AGENT		dagent

Arcserve Backup lets you configure the following switches:

• CA_ENV_DEBUG_EARLY_WARNING

  Lets Arcserve Backup trigger false early warnings in megabyte (MB) increments.

  Early warnings relate to tape media. While writing data to tape, devices can trigger early warnings when the tape is almost full. For example, a tape capacity is 1 GB and the amount of used space is 890 MB. Arcserve Backup can trigger early warning message when there is 890 MB of data written to the tape. The warning lets Arcserve Backup close the tape and span the backup to the next tape.

  Note: This switch affects only backups to tape media.

  • Value--1 to 99999

    Arcserve Backup triggers false early warning messages after each <value> MB of data is written to tape.

  • Value--0

    Arcserve Backup does not trigger false early warning messages.

  Example:

  ENV	CA_ENV_DEBUG_EARLY_WARNING=500
  

  Lets Arcserve Backup trigger false early warning messages when the amount of data written to tape during the backup equals 500 MB, 1000 MB, 1500 MB, and so on.

• CA_ENV_DEBUG_MB_CHECK_THRESHOLD

  Lets Arcserve Backup check the staging FSD threshold in MB increments.

  • Value--1 to 99999

    Arcserve Backup checks the staging FSD threshold in <value> MB increments.

  • Value--0

    Arcserve Backup checks the staging FSD threshold in 50 MB increments.

  As a best practice, you should specify an intermediate value for this switch. With a low value, such a 5 MB, Arcserve Backup frequently checks the staging FSD threshold, which can require a significant amount of system resources. With a high value, such as 50000 MB, Arcserve Backup checks the staging FSD threshold only after 50000 MB of data is written to the FSD during the staging backup job.

  Example:

  ENV	CA_ENV_DEBUG_MB_CHECK_THRESHOLD=100
  

  Lets Arcserve Backup check the staging FSD threshold for each 100MB of data that is written to an FSD during a staging backup job.

• CA_ENV_SNAPIN_FILE_LIMIT

  Lets you define an artificial file size limit for FSD sessions.

  • Value--Integer

  Arcserve Backup generates session files for each backup session to FSDs. If the size of the session files are within the file size limit for the operating system, Arcserve Backup generates extended session files. For example, the file size limit for an operating system is 1 GB. The size of the backup session is 2.5 GB. As a result, Arcserve Backup generates three session files.

  For a user-defined value of 100, Arcserve Backup divides the backup sessions into new session files after each 100 MB of backup data. This option can be used to test the file size limit on various platforms, such as Linux, which allows large file sizes for a single file.

  Be aware of the following:

  • The artificial file size cannot exceed the maximum file size allowed by the operating system.
  • This switch does not require configuration on real environments.

  Example:

  ENV	CA_ENV_SNAPIN_FILE_LIMIT=100
  

  Lets Arcserve Backup split session files after each 100MB of backup data.

• CA_ENV_DEBUG_LEVEL

  Lets you define the level of debugging information for the data mover device component. Arcserve Backup generates debugging log files and stores them in the following directory:

  /opt/CA/ABdatamover/logs/dagent.log
  

  The best practice is to specify a log level between 1 and 3. If you require detailed debugging information, specify 5.

  • Value--0

    Lets Arcserve Backup display only error and warning messages.

  • Value--1, 2, 3, 4

    Lets Arcserve Backup display an increasing amount of debugging information.

  • Value--5

    Lets Arcserve Backup display the highest amount of debugging information.

  • Value--6

    Lets Arcserve Backup display detailed trace information.

    Note: Debug level 6 generates a large number of log messages.

  • Default--3

  Example:

  ENV	CA_ENV_DEBUG_LEVEL=5
  

  Lets Arcserve Backup generate log files that display the highest amount of debugging information.

• CA_ENV_NDMP_LOG_DEBUG

  Lets you define the level of debugging information for data mover NDMPServer component. Arcserve Backup generates debugging log files and stores them in the following directory:

  /opt/CA/ABdatamover/logs/NDMPServer.log
  

  The best practice is to specify a log level of 0.

  • Value--0

    Lets Arcserve Backup record only critical errors.

  • Value--1

    Lets Arcserve Backup record detailed debugging information.

  • Default--0

  Example:

  ENV	CA_ENV_NDMP_LOG_DEBUG=1
  

  Lets Arcserve Backup generate log files that contain detailed debugging information.

• CA_ENV_AGENT_TIME_OUT

  Lets you define the period of time that device agent waits after attempting to start file system agents or the Agent for Oracle. If the device agent cannot start the file system agent or the Agent for Oracle, or, the device agent cannot communicate with the file system agent for the Agent for Oracle within the timeout period, the job will fail.

  • Value--1-99999 Integer (seconds)
  • Default--600 (seconds)

  Be aware of the following best practices:

  • File system agents--The default value is acceptable for most scenarios. However, if you specified a pre- backup script that contains a waiting period, you should specify a timeout value that compensates for the pre- backup script.

    Note: For more information about pre- backup scripts, see the Administration Guide.

  • Agent for Oracle--The default value is acceptable for most scenarios. However, if you encounter difficulties starting the Agent for Oracle within 10 minutes, you can specify a timeout value that is greater than 10 minutes.

  Example:

  ENV	CA_ENV_AGENT_TIME_OUT=600
  

  Lets Arcserve Backup wait 600 seconds (10 minutes) before failing the job.

• CA_ENV_TAPE_SPAN_TIME_OUT

  Lets you define a timeout value for tape spanning operations. During the process of spanning tapes, the Arcserve Backup primary server communicates with the data mover server. If the data mover server does not receive communication from the primary server within the timeout period, the job will fail.

  Note: This switch does not usually require reconfiguration.

  • Value--1-99999 Integer (seconds)
  • Default--600 (seconds)

  Example:

  ENV	CA_ENV_TAPE_SPAN_TIME_OUT=600
  

  Lets Arcserve Backup wait 600 seconds (10 minutes) before failing the job.

• CA_ENV_FSD_PURGE_TIME_OUT

  Lets you define the timeout value for FSD Purge operations. During the process of purging data from FSDs, the Arcserve Backup primary server communicates with the data mover server. If the data mover server does not receive communication from the primary server within the timeout period, the job will fail.

  Note: This switch does not usually require reconfiguration.

  • Value--1-99999 Integer (seconds)
  • Default--600 (seconds)

  Example:

  ENV	CA_ENV_FSD_PURGE_TIME_OUT=600
  

  Lets Arcserve Backup wait 600 seconds (10 minutes) before failing the job.

• CA_ENV_CLEAN_DRIVE_TIME_OUT

  Lets you define the timeout value for tape drive cleaning operations. During the process of cleaning tape drives, the Arcserve Backup primary server communicates with the data mover server. If the data mover server does not receive communication from the primary server within the timeout period, the job will fail.

  Note: This switch does not usually require reconfiguration.

  • Value--1-99999 Integer (seconds)
  • Default--600 (seconds)

  Example:

  ENV	CA_ENV_CLEAN_DRIVE_TIME_OUT=600
  

  Lets Arcserve Backup wait 600 seconds (10 minutes) before failing the job.