4 4 3 Grolar:NDMP Restore

Overview

To successfully restore an NDMP backup, make sure that all prerequisites are met and preparation steps are performed. See also NDMP Backup.

How you perform the NDMP restore depends on how you created the backup. For example, if you have created a dump backup (default), you perform a normal restore. If you have created an smtape backup (supported only by NetApp), you must define additional arguments for the smtape restore in the Target Settings step of the restore wizard.

SEP sesam supports complete restore and selective restore from dump backups. For smtape backups only the complete restore is supported.

You can restore single files from dump backups in one of two ways:

• Perform a normal selective restore without mounting to restore the data to the device from where it was backed up, e.g., NDMP server.
• Use the option Mount saveset to mount the target saveset to the disk and make it accessible as if it were a separate volume on the disk. For mounting advantages, see Cross-platform recovery file system layer (XPRFS)

Note that SEP sesam provides the web Restore Assistant interface, which is more intuitive and provides additional advanced options compared to the GUI restore wizard, while on the other hand it does not support restore of special task types, such as NDMP, MS SQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, etc. For these task types, you can only use the GUI restore wizard to restore your data. However, you can restore data from NDMP file system Path backups via the web Restore Assistant. For details, see Restore Assistant.

Restoring NAS volume data is simple and straightforward. The basic restore steps in the GUI restore wizard are described below.

Prerequisites

• Make sure that you have the required permissions and access rights for NDMP restore.
• Ensure that there is sufficient free space on the target storage system to which you are restoring your data.

Additional requirements for smtape restore

• Ensure that the destinatiom storage system has about 100 MB more disc space than the amount of data you are restoring.
• The volume to which you are going to restore data must be of type DP (data protection) and must be put in a restricted state before you perform the restore. See the NetApp documentation for more information.
• smtape restore completely overwrites the destination volume; make sure that no critical data is stored on the target volume.

Restoring NDMP

For details on configuring a restore task and a description of the various restore options, see Standard Restore Procedure. Only NDMP-specific steps and options are described in this section.

Note

Direct access recovery (DAR) is used during backup to enable selective restore. As of version 4.4.3 Grolar, DAR is enabled by default. If you have disabled it when you created a backup task, you cannot perform a selective restore. For details, see dump backup. In SEP sesam versions ≤ 4.4.3. Beefalo V2, when performing a selective NDMP restore, no empty directories are restored (created) on the target if: empty directories are present in the restore list along with normal directories and files (this is a known issue, but too minor to warrant a fix) at least one file is selected in another directory, for example, if the backup source is /vol/vol1 and the restore selection is /vol/vol1/dir_1/file_1 and /vol/vol1/empty_dir

NDMP backups can be restored to the same or to a different location. For smtape restore, an additional step (step 5) is required to specify the smtape restore type.

1. From the SEP sesam GUI menu bar, select Activities -> Restore and select the saveset you want to restore (task type NDMP).
2. In the Select Task step of the wizard, select the desired version from the list of savesets matching your query. Depending on the type of restore you want to perform, proceed as follows:
• To perform a complete restore of a dump or smtape backup, select the check box Complete restore of selected task and click Next. You will be redirected to step 4.
• To perform a normal selective restore from the dump backup (without mounting), click Next.
• To restore single files from the dump backup by mounting them, select the option Mount saveset under Single file restore. This will mount the target saveset to the disk and make it accessible as if it were a separate volume on disk. Click Next and once the saveset is mounted, click OK.

Note

You can mount any saveset stored to the default data store Path, Si3 deduplication store, or HPE StoreOnce. Mounting is not possible if the savesets are stored on tapes or if the data is compressed or encrypted. For advantages on mounting a saveset, see Cross-platform recovery file system layer (XPRFS). As of v. 4.4.3 Beefalo, the Mount saveset option is only available in Expert UI mode. If you are running the GUI in Basic or Advanced UI mode, first change the mode to Expert, as described in Selecting UI mode.




3. In the Select Files dialog box, select the files you want to restore and click Next. This step is not available for complete restore.
4. In the Target Settings (previously Save and Start) step of the wizard, you can choose to restore the NDMP backup data to the same location by using the Restore to original target path (default) option or to a different location by selecting the New restore target option.
• If you are performing a normal restore (not smtape) and you choose a new restore target with non-existent directories, make sure that you restore your data to the top-level directory (without specifying non-existent subdirectories) by entering the target path as follows: /<volume_name>/<dir_1>. Non-existent subdirectories, for example, /<volume_name>/<dir1>/<dir2> are not supported as restore targets. Note that you can still restore NDMP to the new restore target subdirectories if they already exist.

	Warning
	Specifying non-existent subdirectories in the new target path will cause the restore operation to fail.

• If you are performing a smtape restore, the restore destination must be the root of a volume, e.g., /vol/vol1.




5. This step is required only for smtape restore: Under Target Settings, click the button Expert options -> tab Options, and enter the following in the Restore options field:

-a ndmp_tape_format=smtape

	Note
	As of v. 4.4.3. Beefalo, the Expert Options button for setting advanced restore options is only available in Expert UI mode. It is not available for users that run the GUI in Basic or Advanced mode. In the latter case, if you want to access Expert Options, you need to switch from Basic/Advanced mode to Expert, as described in Selecting UI mode.


Click OK and then Next.


6. In the final step of the restore wizard, you can review all the settings of your restore task. You can also edit the settings by using the Change Selection button. If you want to start your NDMP restore immediately, click Start. If you want to save the restore task, click Save.

Note that after performing an smtape restore, the restored volume is in a read-only state. To make the destination volume writable, use the snapmirror break command. See the NetApp documentation for more information.

	Tip
	A restore task can be scheduled like any other task. If you want to add the NDMP restore task to the schedule, see Scheduling Restore.

You can view the status of your restore jobs by selecting Job State -> Restores from Main Selection. The restore overview provides detailed information on the last run of restore jobs, including the task name, status (successful, error, in queue ...), start and stop time of the last backup, data size, throughput, client, and message.

As of 4.4.3 Beefalo V2, you can also monitor the restore progress via the Web UI. For details, see SEP sesam Web UI.

Known issues

If you have problems with NDMP restore, check the Troubleshooting Guide.