NetBackup Catalog Backups Fail With Status Code 2

During a routine review of a customer's environment I discovered that their most recent catalog backup failed with status code 2 (none of the requested files were backed up). A quick check revealed the horrifying condition that the catalog backups had been failing for a week and the last catalog backup had just expired.

I checked the most recent bpdbm logs (in /usr/openv/netbackup/logs/bpdbm) and noticed the following curious entries:

<16> backup_dbspaces: ODBC connection failed.
<16> backup_dbspaces: ErrMsg [Sybase][ODBC Driver][SQL Anywhere]Database server not found, ErrCode -1, Sqlstate 08001

Google searches revealed that the /usr/openv/db/data/vxdbms.conf file had been a culprit for some people. Apparently this file contains parameters for backing up the NetBackup catalog database. In my case, I immediately noticed the file pointed to a server other than the master server.

It seemed reasonable that I had found the root cause of the failed catalog backups, though I had no idea how or why the file might have changed. Also, never having the occasion to edit the vxdbms.conf file I wanted to be sure I was doing the right thing, so I opened a support case.

Support confirmed for me that the file should point to the master server. The the following procedure resolved the status code 2 on the catalog backups. (We had to gracefully terminate some running jobs first.)

/usr/openv/db/bin/create_nbdb -config_only -force
/etc/init.d/netbackup stop
/etc/init.d/netbackup start

NetBackup Catalog Backups Fail With Status Code 2