DOCUMENTATION: How to recover a NetBackup catalog from disk if the original media server which did the backup

is not available.
The restore of a NetBackup catalog requires the restore environment to contain the media server which performed the original catalog backup.

If this media server is offline, or not available or no longer exists, a manual edit of the disaster recovery (DR) file is necessary so the restore process can go to the correct server for the catalog file.

Please note that the "Media Host Override" function (or FORCE_RESTORE_MEDIA_SERVER entry in the bp.conf file) is not referenced during the first half of a catalog recovery (imageDB restore), however it is still required for the second half of a catalog recovery (NBDB restore). Both the Media Host Override function and the following steps are required to completely recover the NetBackup databases. For this example, the following server names are used: Master: NBUMASTER Media: NBUMEDIA

If a catalog backup was performed to the server NBUMEDIA, and that server is offline or no longer exists, the following edit will need to be performed to the DR file to point to NBUMASTER which is able to perform the restore. Replace all existing NBUMEDIA references in the DR file with NBUMASTER, as in this example: 1. Make copies of all disaster recovery files. These files can be emailed to an administrative account as a part of the backup policy. Additionally, they can be found in the location specified on the Disaster Recovery tab in the catalog policy (Figure 1). Figure 1

2. Open the Hot_Catalog_Backup_<ctime>_FULL file and replace all references to NBUMEDIA with NBUMASTER. Example: Change the following (bold added for clarity): # FRAG: c# f# K rem mt den fn id/path host bs off md dwo f_flags f_unused1 exp mpx rl chkpt rsm_nbr seq_no media_subtype i_unused3 i_unused2 i_unused1 FRAGMENT 1 -1 26 0 2 15 3 <disk path> NBUMEDIA 65536 4081 1155314180 0 0 *NULL* 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 FRAGMENT 1 1 4232 0 2 15 2 <disk path> NBUMEDIA 65536 4012 1155314180 0 0 *NULL* 1156523921 0 65537 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 #DR_MEDIA_REC: ver rtype mtype/den host c# p# classes# classes kbytes nimg vimg hsize off unused4 unused3 unused2 unused1 id/path id_ext DR_MEDIA_REC 0 0 15 NBUMEDIA 1 1 0 256498 1 1 1024 4012 0 0 0 0 <disk path> ------to look like this (bold added for clarity): # FRAG: c# f# K rem mt den fn id/path host bs off md dwo f_flags f_unused1 exp mpx rl chkpt rsm_nbr seq_no media_subtype i_unused3 i_unused2 i_unused1 FRAGMENT 1 -1 26 0 2 15 3 <disk path> NBUMASTER 65536 4081 1155314180 0 0 *NULL* 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 FRAGMENT 1 1 4232 0 2 15 2 <disk path> NBUMASTER 65536 4012 1155314180 0 0 *NULL* 1156523921 0 65537 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

#DR_MEDIA_REC: ver rtype mtype/den host c# p# classes# classes kbytes nimg vimg hsize off unused4 unused3 unused2 unused1 id/path id_ext DR_MEDIA_REC 0 0 15 NBUMASTER 1 1 0 256498 1 1 1024 4012 0 0 0 0 CAT001 This instructs the Catalog recovery to reference NBUMASTER to find the image on disk for the recovery. Note: The image will have to be in the same relative path as it was on the original server. Once this change has been made proceed with the catalog recovery as follows: For Windows: 1. Set the restore failover Media Server in the Restore Failover settings in the Master Server Host Properties 2. Run the catalog recovery wizard and select the option for Full catalog recovery For UNIX and Linux: 1. Run the catalog recovery wizard and select the option for Partial catalog recovery 2. When the recovery operation completes edit the bp.conf file and add the FORCE_RESTORE_MEDIA_SERVER setting. 3. Run the command bprecover -r -nbdb to recover only the NBDB This 'two stage' approach is required on UNIX and Linux because the catalog recovery process restores the bp.conf before restoring NBDB and thus overwrites any FORCE_RESTORE_MEDIA_SERVER setting configured before the catalog recovery is started.