Netbackup Skipping Backup ID

Using Netbackup 7.5, recently we encountered the following error:

no images were successfully processed (191)

and

found no images or media matching the selection criteria (190)

and if you do "Search Now" in the Catalog with Action: Verify, you will get the following error:

To fix this issue, run the following command:

bpexpdate -backupid XXXXX_1338296403 -d 0 -force

this will force the problematic backup id to expire

ESXi 5 Install Offline Bundle

To install the ESXi 5 host with the Offline Bundle:

• Download the ISO file from VMware
• Extract the ISO file and find the offline-bundle ZIP file
• SCP this ZIP file to the ESXi host (e.g. /tmp/driver.zip)
  
• Run the following command

esxcli software vib install -d /tmp/offline-bundle.zip

Reboot

iPhoto Backup

I am using iPhone and taking photos with it. As you know it imports the photos automatically to the iPhoto when it is connected to the OSX. I created the following bash script to mount the Windows file share and copy the photos to the Windows Server

#!/bin/bash
mount -t smbfs //username:password@windowsserver/pictures /Users/laurence/Mount
rsync -urz /Users/laurence/Pictures/iPhoto\ Library/Masters /Users/laurence/Mount/iPhoto
umount /Users/laurence/Mount

Exchange ExMon

Exchange ExMon tool is an awesome tool! by using this tool, for each user session, you can view

• Number of packets
• Number of operations
• CPU Time
• CPU %
• Avg and Max Server latency
• Bytes In and Out
• Client Version and IP Address
• Read, PreRead and Dirtied Pages
• Log Bytes

The Log Bytes information is particularly very helpful if you want to find out who is filling up your Exchange Server Logs

The program can be downloaded from here

Sometime when you run it, it crashes :) and if you try to run it again, you will get the following error:

Then you should do the followings:

Open the Command Prompt and type in:

logman query -ets

As you can see in the picture above, the last line is: Exchange Event Trace
You need to stop this trace, by typing:

logman stop "Exchange Event Trace" -ets

Then you can run the ExMon again.

 

Exchange 2010 Recovery

Recently I had to recover my Exchange 2010 Servers. One of them was the Mailbox server role part of the DAG and the other one was the CAS, Hub and UM server. Those 2 servers were totally gone, unrecoverable due to RAID controller failure

CAS + Hub + UM Server Recovery

• Build the server, Windows 2008 R2 SP1, name it EXACTLY the same name with the failed server name
• Add all the Windows Server role + features required for CAS+Hub+UM
• Patch it
• Join to the domain
• Extract the Exchange 2010 SP2 to the temp directory (e.g. C:\temp)
• Run setup.com /m:RecoverServer
• Reboot and check the configuration

Mailbox Server Recovery

• Build the server, Windows 2008 R2 SP1 (Enterprise), name it EXACTLY the same name with the failed server
• Add the Windows Server role + features required for Mailbox role
• Patch it
• Join to the domain
• Remove the database copy from this failure Mailbox server (e.g. do this from the running Exchange 2010 Server)

Remove-MailboxDatabaseCopy DB1\MBX1

• Remove the failed server's configuration from the DAG

Remove-DatabaseAvailabilityGroupServer -Identity DAG1 -MailboxServer MBX1 -ConfigurationOnly

• Extract the Exchange 2010 SP2 to the temp directory (e.g. C:\temp)
• Run setup.com /m:RecoverServer
• Reboot
• Add the server back to the DAG

Add-DatabaseAvailabilityGroupServer -Identity DAG1 -MailboxServer MBX1

• Add the database copy

Add-MailboxDatabaseCopy -Identity DB1 -MailboxServer MBX1