Enabling logs and increasing the log levels

OVERVIEW

A significant number of the SRs that come into ASPS require additional logging details to identify the root cause. Since logging is not enabled by default within NBU, it is often necessary to enable the appropriate logging. The steps below will walk you through the process to enable NBU logging.

The NBU default logging level (0) is not sufficient for troubleshooting most problems. Including the verbosity, or logging level, will increase the amount of information captured in the NBU logs.

NBU Logs

The following NBU logs are commonly used for troubleshooting:

bptm - Tape manager. Contains information about NetBackup interaction with tape media.
bpdm - Disk manager. Contains information about NetBackup interaction with disk media.
admin log - Lists bpduplicate messages, which is necessary when dealing with PTT.
ndmp - This log is helpful for both OST ingest and PTT.

Cross Referencing Data in the NBU
The PID can be used to cross-reference related messages within the bptm, bpdm or admin log depending on which functionality is in error. The bptm is for backups, and bpdm is for opt-dups.

Enabling NBU Logs

To enable logging for a specific log in NBU, a directory must be created in NBUInstallDir\Netbackup\logs. For OST issues, make sure that the admin, bpdm, bptm, and ndmp logs are enabled:

The ndmp logs are unified and are enabled by default.`
To enable the admin, bpdm and bptm logs:
1. Verify that there are admin, bpdm, and bptm directoriesunder NBUInstallDir\Netbackup\Logs, as in this example:

C:\Program Files\Veritas\NetBackup\logs>dir admin

Volume in drive C has no label.

Volume Serial Number is A85B-7F47

Directory of C:\Program Files\Veritas\NetBackup\logs\admin

05/27/2011 12:07 AM <DIR> .

05/27/2011 12:07 AM <DIR> ..

04/30/2011 12:28 PM 133,346 043011.log

05/01/2011 12:26 PM 123,091 050111.log

05/02/2011 05:24 PM 584,802 050211.log

05/03/2011 02:26 PM 171,366 050311.log

05/04/2011 11:47 AM 18,943 050411.log

05/24/2011 02:30 PM 70,616 052411.log

05/25/2011 12:07 PM 67,259 052511.log

05/26/2011 12:07 PM 62,398 052611.log

05/27/2011 01:00 AM 37,830 052711.log

9 File(s) 1,269,651 bytes

2 Dir(s) 8,892,526,592 bytes free

C:\Program Files\Veritas\NetBackup\logs>dir bptm

Volume in drive C has no label.

Volume Serial Number is A85B-7F47

Directory of C:\Program Files\Veritas\NetBackup\logs\bptm

05/27/2011 12:00 AM <DIR> .

05/27/2011 12:00 AM <DIR> ..

04/30/2011 11:56 PM 24,231,234 043011.log

05/01/2011 11:56 PM 22,112,276 050111.log

05/02/2011 11:56 PM 68,588,757 050211.log

05/03/2011 11:56 PM 22,669,808 050311.log

05/04/2011 11:46 AM 122,828 050411.log

05/25/2011 12:00 AM 895,925,663 052411.log

05/25/2011 11:50 PM 712,797,789 052511.log

05/26/2011 11:50 PM 82,569 052611.log

05/27/2011 11:10 AM 39,169 052711.log

9 File(s) 1,746,570,093 bytes

2 Dir(s) 8,892,522,496 bytes free

C:\Program Files\Veritas\NetBackup\logs>dir bpdm

Volume in drive C has no label.

Volume Serial Number is A85B-7F47

Directory of C:\Program Files\Veritas\NetBackup\logs\bpdm

05/27/2011 12:00 AM <DIR> .

05/27/2011 12:00 AM <DIR> ..

04/30/2011 12:56 AM 94,177,450 043011.log

05/01/2011 12:56 AM 86,627,381 050111.log

05/02/2011 04:55 PM 169,553,310 050211.log

05/24/2011 11:46 AM 19,007 052411.log

4 File(s) 350,377,148 bytes

2 Dir(s) 8,892,522,496 bytes free

C:\Program Files\Veritas\NetBackup\logs>

If these directories do not exist, create them and restart the NBU services.

Increasing the Legacy and Unified Log Levels

The log levels for both the Legacy and Unified logs must be increased. The following sections show how to do this.

Increasing the Logging Level for Legacy Logs

The level for Legacy logs is controlled by the host properties in the Administration Console. To change the logging level for NBU Legacy logs, follow this procedure.

From the Administration Console:

Expand Host Properties.
Select Master Servers or Media Servers, as shown in the left-hand pane below.
Right-click the host in the right-hand pane.
Select Properties, as shown below.

In the Server Properties box, click on Logging in the Properties pane and set the Global logging level to 5 (debug/everything is enabled). Do NOT enable robust logging -- it will cause the logs to roll over too quickly, overwriting logs that might need to be analyzed.

You can also make changes to the Clean-up settings as well:

Increasing the Logging Level for Unified Logs

The level for Unified logs is controlled by a command line utility called vxlogcfg.cmd, which is located in NBUInstallDir\Netbackup\bin.

Processes within NBU have ID numbers that are used to modify the logging behavior and will not all be covered here. The program ID for NBU is 51216. The ID to use for ndmp is 151 and the log level can be increased to the max by using the example below:

C:\Program Files\Veritas\NetBackup\bin>vxlogcfg.cmd -a -p 51216 -o 151 -s DebugLevel=6

The configuration settings were added successfully.

RESOURCES

Check out the logging section in the NetBackup topic.