NovaNet 8.00 SP3C 19 June 2000
This document includes updated information for the documentation provided with NovaNet Version 8.00. The information in this document and in the Help system may be more up-to-date than the information contained in the printed manuals. Many of the issues outlined in this document will be corrected in upcoming releases.
1. Accessing Online Documentation
1.1 How to view or print the CD based documentation
1.2 How to view WebHelp HTML based help
1.3 Linux Online Documentation/Help
3. General Notes - Applies to all operating systems
3.1 Using multiple SCSI buses with autoloaders
4.1 Windows 2000 update required for Disaster Recovery Option
4.2 Windows 2000 compatibility
4.3 Installing NovaNet on Windows Terminal Server
4.4 Later phases of Disaster Recover on Japanese systems is partly in
English
4.5 Location of updated drivers
4.6 New Microsoft Exchange Connector
4.7 Windows 2000 Disaster Recovery
5.1 Later phases of Disaster Recover on Japanese systems is partly in
English
5.2 Limitations of the Windows 95/98 Disaster Recovery Module
6.1 Using NWASPI.CDM and Fibre Channel on the NetWare operating system
6.3 Disaster Recover cannot find an updated SCSI driver
6.4 Recovering mirrored partitions
7.1 NovaNet for DOS may not be able to be installed from CD
8.1 Key prompts being cut from bottom of screen
8.2 TERM= environment variable not correctly set
8.3 Default installation paths
8.4 Online help is not automatically installed
8.5 Copying the installation program to a local disk
8.7 TCP/IP may not see other NovaNet servers
8.8 SCSI autoloaders may not be detected
8.10 IDE/ATAPI Support Added. 5
9.1 Erroneous Stream Sync Error on Verify/Restore
9.2 Job Deadlock with small streams
9.3 SMTP Email support now RFC 821 compliant
9.4 Database conversion from previous releases of NovaNet
After installing NovaNet, select Start|Programs|NovaNet|NovaNet Documentation|Printable Documents. In order to view or print this documentation, you must have the Adobe Acrobat v4.0 read installed on your system. If you do not already have this installed, you may install it from the NovaNet CD by selecting Documentation|Install Acrobat from the main NovaNet installation screen.
Use a Windows workstation to access the \DOC\language\ACROBAT subdirectory on the NovaNet CD where language is the localized language name. You must have the Adobe Acrobat v4.0 reader installed on your Windows workstation in order to view or print the documentation. The localized version of Acrobat Reader for Windows is also included in the Acrobat subdirectory in case you do not have Acrobat installed on your system.
You may also use the HTML formatted documentation from the \DOC\language\HTMLHELP subdirectory. The two files contained in the directory are identical. One is compressed with standard DOS/Windows PKZIP while the other is compressed with Linux GZIP and TAR. Copy this file over to a separate subdirectory on your hard disk, and decompress the file. Approximately 1600 files will be extracted which is the HTML version of NovaNet online help. To start the help system, use you browser to open the index.htm file. This will open the NovaNet table of contents and the opening pages.
HTML Web based help is included in the \DOC\lng\HTMLHELP\HTMLHELP.ZIP and HTMLHELP.TGZ. Both files are the same but zipped differently. The TGZ file uses Linux tar/gzip while the ZIP file uses standard WinZip. Unzip either of these files to your local hard disk and launch the index.htm file as the root of the Help tree.
To use the documentation system for the Linux X-Window based U/I, unzip either HTMLHELP.TGZ or HTMLHELP.ZIP to the “installation “directory\htmlhelp”. By default, this would be /usr/local/NovaNet/htmlhelp.
The Italian language is now fully support within NovaNet, the online help and the printed documentation.
Many stylistic revisions in the various localizations have been included in the base translations. The corrections are based on user feedback from the original translations and localizations.
If your autoloader and the devices within the autoloader are connected to different SCSI buses, the driver may become confused as to which device is contained in the autoloader. If the drives and autoloader use the new SCSI-3 serial number detection protocol, all devices will be correctly assigned. However, if the autoloader supports only SCSI-2 protocol, you must connect the devices to the same SCSI bus as the autoloader, or manually configure the drivers as follows:
A. Run the administrator as you normally would. Note that names of the device and the autoloader. For this example, the loader will be “Ldr-2.0.3.0: ADIC Scalar” with the two devices being “Dev-3.0.3.0: DLT 4000” and “Dev-4.0.3.0: DLT 4000”.
B. Add a line in the .ini configuration file as follows:
[Ldr-2.0.3.0: ADIC Scalar]
device1=Dev-3.0.3.0: DLT 4000
device2=Dev-4.0.3.0: DLT 4000
C. Restart the service, if necessary, and the administrator as usual.
The original release of Windows 2000 has a problem with registry quotas. When running NovaNet to build a Disaster Recovery diskette set, CD-R or tape, the registry quota would soon become exhausted. For this reason, NovaNet checks the running version of Windows 2000 and specifically disables all Disaster Recovery functions if a Microsoft supplied patch is not installed. To obtain this patch:
1. Access the Microsoft website at http://search.support.microsoft.com/kb
2. Specify that your search is about ‘All Microsoft Products’.
3. Specify that you want to search by ‘Keyword Search using All Words’.
4. Specify that your question is Q260241, and click Go.
5. Follow the instructions provided for obtaining and installing the update.
After the update is applied, NovaNet should recognize the new update and enable the Disaster Recovery option after it has been installed.
NovaNet currently supports most Windows 2000 functionality. However, a couple of areas that are not supported:
A. If you use junction points, NovaNet will consider the junction as a complete volume, in other words, it will follow the junction point and backup all the files in the junction rather than simply backing up the metadata. If on restore, if the junction point is not mounted, NovaNet will create a subdirectory with the same name as the junction point and restore to the same disk that was previously hosting the junction point.
B. RSM – Remote/removable storage manager is not currently supported. If NovaNet is run, the RSM is temporarily disabled, NovaNet will allocate all tape device and tape loader devices, then RSM is restarted. This behavior will be changed in the next release of NovaNet.
C. The NovaNet Disaster Recovery option for Windows NT/2000 will support basic disk configurations only. If you attempt to restore your system with dynamic disks enabled, NovaNet will not be able to restore the volume information.
D. Encrypted files and file systems are not currently supported.
If you are running Terminal Server, you must install NovaNet as a service. This allows multiple user interfaces to share the common resources of the service.
The final phases of Disaster Recovery are not translated into Japanese. All other languages are supported, but the Japanese will be deferred to English. In addition, some non-English characters may be displayed as black boxes when displayed on the log screen. This is normal and can be ignored. All files will be recovered to the correct names.
The Windows Disaster Recovery requires all drivers to be located in the %SYSTEMROOT%\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS subdirectory. If you have a driver that is required to run your tape device or disk devices and it installs to a different location, put a copy of this driver into the DRIVERS directory.
The NovaNet Microsoft Exchange Connector has been redesigned to correct an intermittent hang issue and general restoration issues. The new connector cannot restore tapes created with the older connector, and new tapes cannot be restored with the older connector. This is due to a change in the way data is formatted on tape as it comes from the Exchange connector itself. This new connector also stops the required Exchange services for the information store being restored, and starts the System Attendant, which is required to restore either of the information store databases.
The final phases of Disaster Recovery are not translated into Japanese. All other languages are supported, but the Japanese will be deferred to English. In addition, some non-English characters may be displayed as black boxes when displayed on the log screen. This is normal and can be ignored. All files will be recovered to the correct names.
NovaNet now supports Windows 95 and Windows 98 disaster recovery. Some limitations are present in the current release:
A. Protected-mode 32-bit disk drivers must control all disks and volumes. No real mode drivers are supported. You can determine if your system is using 32-bit drivers exclusively by right clicking on “My Computer” on your desktop and selecting the “Performance” tab. If any 16-bit real mode drivers are being used, Windows will indicate that your system is not optimally configured. This is common for most systems.
B. Compressed volumes using DriveSpace, Stac, etc. are not supported.
C. The tape device must also use a 32-bit protected mode driver. This is common for most SCSI and ATAPI controllers.
If all devices are not detected during auto detection, or devices are missing within the device explorer, make sure that you are loading NWASPI with the /LUN option as follows:
load NWASPI.CDM /LUN
This line is typically found in your STARTUP.NCF.
For systems using .HAM drivers, make sure that NWASPI.CDM is loaded from your AUTOEXEC.NCF or STARTUP.NCF. If not, the final phase of Disaster Recovery will not be able to access the tape device.
NovaNet searches for required drivers, first in the C:\NWSERVER directory, followed by the SYS:SYSTEM directory. If you update a driver, make sure the updated driver is also placed in C:\NWSERVER.
All mirrored partitions are now correctly initialized during the recovery procedure if a full system recovery is selected. To prevent any data loss on other partitions, mirror pairs are not automatically recreated if only the boot disk recovery method is used.
Under some versions of MSCDEX, it may be necessary to copy the \DOS directory to your local hard drive and install from there. The DOS4/G DOS extender will be unable to correctly link the strlen symbol. This is due to the DOS extender attempting to open the NNdosclb.dll file in read/write mode, which the MSCDEX does not allow.
NovaNet displays key prompts on the bottom of the screen using logical keys. The terminal you are using may map these keys differently on your keyboard. For example, for the Shift-F1 key, some keyboards drivers may map this as F11 while others will map this as Shift-F1. If this is the case, the NovaNet Shift-F1 maps to F11, Shift-F2 maps to F12, Shift-F3 maps to Shift-F1, etc.
Under Redhat Linux, when running the NovaNet character based interface under the xterm console in X-Windows, the screen may be corrupted. This is due to a bug in the console driver. You can correct this problem by using specifying the following command prior to starting NovaNet:
export TERM=xterm-color
You should install to the default /usr/local/novanet directory. If you install to any other directory, you must manually enter the path name when upgrading, installing options or removing NovaNet as the installation program will not search for existing installations except in the default /usr/local/novanet directory.
The online help is not installed by default since it is rather large. You may find the online documentation under the /doc directory on the CD. The documentation is in HTML format and can be viewed with the Netscape browser. See “Documentation”, section 1 above.
If you copy the installation files from the CD, make sure you mark the install and lin/NNunxins files with the eXectuable attribute.
An updated driver model is now used which is compatible with most Linux kernel revisions. The driver dynamically links to the appropriate kernel functions and is now manufacturer and revision independent. However, there are two basic modules, sgm20.o and sgm22.o which are selected automatically at run time based on the kernel version number you are using.
Under some conditions, the Linux TCP/IP driver will not be able to display other Storage Servers on the TCP/IP network. Make sure that you have entered a valid TCP/IP default gateway, or specify the server address in the NovaNet host address dialog box during installation.
By default, most SCSI drivers under Linux do not enable LUN support, which is required to support integrated autoloaders. To enable LUN support on Linux, add the following line to the end of /etc/lilo.conf:
append= “max_scsi_luns=2”
After this line is added, make sure you run lilo to update the configuration with the following command:
lilo
After this is completed, reboot your system.
If you attempt to restore files that are in use at the time of the restore, the Linux kernel may crash. For example, NovaNet requires the ld.so file. If you restore this file, NovaNet will crash. The same holds true for in use files used by the Linux kernel itself. The workaround is to restore to a different subdirectory first, then copy or move these files to their actual destinations after the restore is complete.
NovaNet for Linux can now use IDE/ATAPI tape devices. If the Linux distribution has compiled the ide-tape.o module into the kernel, you need to add the one of the following lines to the end of /etc/lilo.conf:
append= “hda=ide-scsi” If your tape device is the master device on the primary IDE interface
append= “hdb=ide-scsi” If your tape device is the slave device on the primary IDE interface
append= “hdc=ide-scsi” If your tape device is the master device on the secondary IDE interface
append= “hdd=ide-scsi” If your tape device is the slave device on the secondary IDE interface
After this line is added, make sure you run lilo to update the configuration with the following command:
lilo
After this is completed, reboot your system.
Note: The current distributions that, during testing, we have found require these statements are:
RedHat 5.2
Corel Linux 1.0 and 1.1
SuSe 6.2
If you are upgrading from an earlier version of NovaNet, you must restart your machine so that the latest version of sgm.o would be loaded. You may also manually unload any running version of sgm.o by using the Linux rmmod command.
We recommend you to use CRT 3.0 from www.vandyke.com. Here are the steps you need to configure in order for the NovaNet to respond correctly:
A. Copy the mappings below and save them into a file called NovaNet.key
B. Select Session Options from the CRT's Options menu
C. Select the Emulation category
D. Select vt100 for the terminal
E. Check ANSI Color
F. Select Custom for the keyboard and enter full path to NovaNet.key
G. Select the Appeance category and use the vt100 font
Make sure you export the variable TERM to xterm-color using the command:
export TERM=xterm-color
On some systems, such as CorelLinux, xterm-color is not available so you must use xterm instead. Unlike xterm-color, xterm is only back and white.
You can also put "export TERM=xterm-color" in /etc/profile or ~/.bash_profile for permanent setting.
Key mappings placed in NovaNet.key:
N VK_INSERT "\e[2~"
N VK_F1 VT_PF1
N VK_F2 VT_PF2
N VK_F3 VT_PF3
N VK_F4 VT_PF4
N VK_F5 "\e[15~"
N VK_F6 "\e[17~"
N VK_F7 "\e[18~"
N VK_F8 "\e[19~"
N VK_F9 "\e[20~"
N VK_F10 "\e[21~"
E VK_INSERT "\e[2~"
S VK_F1 "\e[23~"
S VK_F2 "\e[24~"
S VK_F3 "\e[25~"
S VK_F4 "\e[26~"
S VK_F5 "\e[28~"
S VK_F6 "\e[29~"
S VK_F7 "\e[31~"
S VK_F8 "\e[32~"
S VK_F9 "\e[33~"
S VK_F10 "\e[34~"
A bug that caused Stream Sync errors to occur during verify or restore when multiple streams were selected, as been corrected. The (FEND) header was claiming 32-bytes of extra data within the stream which caused any header directly following the bad header to be discarded. This error would also cause unexpected verification errors on files which were not changed between the backup and verify passes.
If a job stream were started when another stream was in the middle of signaling activity back to the database manager, a deadlock error would occur. The error caused NovaNet to freeze on the database manager, and all clients to become unresponsive. This most frequently occurred when a large number of streams were created.
The SMTP client used by NovaNet to send logs via email has been corrected to follow the earlier RFC 821 specification followed by older email servers.
Several bugs have been corrected in the automatic database conversion procedures. These bugs causes 3 problems on converted databases:
A. On NetWare, some systems would Abend during the conversion process.
B. The type of compression used as indicated by the instance records was incorrect. The compression field was not initialized in previous releases and contained random data. This caused intermittent restore problems since the compression method used on a particular instance was not what was actually contained on the media.
C. Job selections would be lost due to a change in the internal path format.
A problem with importing media created by previous releases of NovaNet has been corrected. The symptoms of this problem are missing the first 3 characters on each object name.
Several issues with Exchange 5.5 have been corected. See the the Windows NT/2000 section above for details.
Several issues with Microsoft SQL v7.0 have been corrected. The main issue was the password used to login to SQL server.