PowerProtect Data Manager 19.13 Oracle RMAN User Guide

Agent registration

On Windows, if the agent fails to establish a connection with the PowerProtect Data Manager server, agent registration might fail with the following error message:

During a network connectivity test, the agent is unable to reach the PowerProtect Data Manager server by using ping. 

1.	If the ping command is blocked in the environment, the agent registration can still complete successfully. 
Review the agent service logs at INSTALL_DIR\DPSAPPS\AgentService\logs to verify that the registration is successful. If the registration is successful, the status of the agent host indicates Registered in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI.
2.	If the ping command is not blocked in the environment, the agent registration might not complete successfully because a network connection cannot be started. If this occurs, complete the following steps to troubleshoot the issue:

On Linux or AIX, if the agent fails to establish a connection with the PowerProtect Data Manager server, agent registration might fail with the following error message:

During a network connectivity test, the agent is unable to reach the PowerProtect Data Manager server by using ping and curl. 

1.	If the ping command is blocked in the environment and curl is not installed, the agent registration can still complete successfully. 
Review the agent service logs at /opt/dpsapps/agentsvc/logs to verify that the registration is successful. If the registration is successful, the status of the agent host indicates Registered in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI.
2.	If the ping command is not blocked in the environment, the agent registration might not complete successfully because a network connection cannot be started. If this occurs, complete the following steps to troubleshoot the issue:

If agent registration fails with these error messages, complete the following operation:

1. Use any network packet tracing tool to trace the packets from the agent system to PowerProtect Data Manager.
2. Start the packet tracing between the source IP of the agent system and the destination IP of PowerProtect Data Manager.
3. Start the network traffic between the agent system and PowerProtect Data Manager.

   Wait 10 to 15 seconds.

4. Analyze the captured packets.
5. Look for SYN and SYN_ACK packets to see if a 3-way handshake is being performed.

   Determine whether the source agent or the destination PowerProtect Data Manager is blocking the connection.

   If network traffic is blocked, contact your network security team to resolve the port communication issue.

Agent host is registered with short name instead of FQDN

Application agent registration using the short name of the agent host is not supported after updating to PowerProtect Data Manager 19.11 or later versions.

If the agent host was previously registered with the short name, and you attempt to re-register the host with the short name after updating PowerProtect Data Manager to version 19.11 or a later version, registration fails with the following error:

Unable to register the agent host <hostName> because short name is not allowed for agent registration.

To resolve the issue, do not remove the host. Configure the host with the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN), and then retry the registration.

If you try to register a new host with the short name after updating PowerProtect Data Manager to version 19.11 or a later version, registration fails with the following error:

Unable to register the agent host <hostName> because short name is not allowed for agent registration.

To resolve this issue, remove the application agent host in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI:

1. Go to Infrastructure > Application Agents.
2. Select the entry for the application agent host and click Remove.

   After the removal, the host is in a "Deleted" state.

   NOTE: The application agent host is automatically removed from the Application Agents window within 24 hours after the deletion.
3. After the removal process is complete, configure the host with the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN), and then retry the registration.

PowerProtect agent service operations

To troubleshoot PowerProtect agent service operations, you can check the PowerProtect agent service log file OpAgentSvc-<timestamp>.log, which is created in <agent_service_installation_location>\logs on Windows and <agent_service_installation_location>/logs on AIX or Linux. To modify the log level and retention of temporary files, you can modify specific parameter settings in the config.yml file.

To modify the log level and retention of temporary files, you can perform the following steps:

1. Stop the agent service.
2. Open the config.yml file in an editor.
3. Modify the log-level settings in the following parameters, as required:
   • DEBUG
   • INFO
   • WARNING
   • ERROR
   • CRITICAL
   NOTE: These parameters are listed in order of decreasing number of messages in the debug information output. The default log-level is INFO.
4. To retain the temporary files, set the keepTempFiles parameter to True in the config.yml file.
   NOTE: The agent service and application agent communicate through the temporary files, which are typically deleted after use but can be useful for troubleshooting purposes. Do not leave the keepTempFiles parameter set to True permanently, or the temporary files can use excessive space on the file system.
5. Start the agent service.

Uninstalling the PowerProtect agent service results in "Segmentation fault(coredump)" error on AIX platforms

After updating the application agent from version 19.12 to 19.13, uninstalling the PowerProtect agent service results in the following error:

/usr/sbin/rpm_share [470]: 19005466 Segmentation fault(coredump)

This behavior does not impact reinstallation of the PowerProtect agent service.

The core dump error is due to a faulty rpm.rte file with version 4.13.0.3. For more information, see update rpm.rte to the latest version to resolve rpm errors and core dumps.

To resolve this issue, either update the rpm.rte file to the latest version or update the AIX Technology Level (TL) version. The following article provides more information about TL versions:

Fileset information for: rpm.rte

Deletion compliance for SLA validation job marked as "Failed" in PowerProtect Data Manager UI

Due to a cancel request and create-new-copy deletion request occurring simultaneously, deletion compliance for an SLA validation job is incorrectly shown as "Failed" in the UI, even though the copy deletion has succeeded. This issue can occur if replication copies exist, but the corresponding backup copy has been deleted. In this case, the retention time of the replication copies is greater than the retention time of the backup copy. Once the replication copies expire or are manually deleted, it triggers the catalog deletion request, which marks the copy as "Deleted."

PowerProtect Data Manager UI display of localhost.localdomain hostname

In the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, the Application Agents, Asset Sources, and Protection Jobs windows might list the asset primary hostname as localhost.localdomain instead of the expected FQDN.

The display of localhost.localdomain as the hostname in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI windows might occur when you specify the host's actual FQDN setting for the loopback address in the /etc/hosts file. For example, when you add the following settings in the /etc/hosts file, the first setting value, localhost.localdomain, appears as the hostname in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI windows, instead of the actual FQDN:

127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost6 localhost6.localdomain6
127.0.0.1 blrv027d233.blr.lab.emc.com blrv027d233

Ensure that the host's actual FQDN is not specified for the loopback address and do not specify hostnames that start with "local" in the /etc/hosts file.

Application agent update failure in PowerProtect Data Manager UI on Linux

On a Linux OS that uses /etc/init.d instead of systemd to start the OS services, an update of a previous application agent version in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI might fail with the following error message:

Upgrade operation failed with error 'tuple' object has no attribute 'lower', errorcode: .

As a workaround, update the application agent by using the appropriate update commands and command-line procedure as described in this guide.

Configuration failure after application agent update when database is unresponsive

After an update of the application agent and PowerProtect Data Manager to release 19.13, while the Oracle database is in a shut down or unresponsive state, asset discovery by PowerProtect Data Manager does not discover the database. As a result, a configuration operation fails, such as the creation or movement of a protection policy.

As a workaround, complete the following steps:

1. Ensure that the Oracle database is in a responsive state.
2. Run a full asset discovery manually or wait until the next auto-discovery is completed.
3. Perform the configuration operation.

Asset duplication issue after downgrade

When you downgrade the Oracle RMAN agent to an earlier version and register the agent with the same PowerProtect Data Manager server, the downgrade creates duplicate asset entries in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI.

In the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, you can view the duplicate asset entries by selecting Infrastructure > Assets and then clicking the Oracle tab.

The downgrade of the Oracle RMAN agent is not supported.

Issue with hostnames used for discoveries after a hostname change

After the Oracle RMAN hostname is changed, a scheduled discovery might run with the new hostname and a manual discovery might run with the old hostname. The PowerProtect Data Manager UI displays the different hostnames that are used for the scheduled and manual discovery operations.

As a workaround, complete the procedure in Enable the Oracle RMAN agent after hostname change.

Incorrect SID or database name in rename.config file

After you change the SID of a stand-alone database or the database name of a RAC database, you can continue using an existing asset from an existing protection policy with PowerProtect Data Manager. You need to provide the previous SID of the stand-alone database or previous database name of the RAC database in the rename.config file. If the SID or database name in the rename.config file is incorrect, the following error appears during a backup:

Some of the assets have the new natural ID status. Please reconfigure the PLC.

Use the following steps to resolve the issue:

1. Make any required corrections of the SIDs or database names in the rename.config file. Enable the use of an existing asset in a modified environment provides more details about updating the rename.config file to enable the continued use of an existing asset.

2. Reconfigure the PowerProtect Data Manager protection policy:

   1. In the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, select Protection > Protection Policies.

   2. On the Protection Policies page, select the existing protection policy in the list and click Set Lockbox, which starts the configuration.

      NOTE: Use of Set Lockbox is required only when a previous SID or database name was incorrectly specified and then later corrected.

Incorrect asset display after asset source deletion

If an asset source is deleted, the associated assets sometimes appear as Available rather than Deleted. This issue can occur when using PowerProtect Data Manager version 19.9 or later with an older version of the Oracle RMAN agent.

To resolve this issue, contact Customer Support.

Failed migration of RAC_BACKUP_NODE_IP parameter setting

When the RAC_BACKUP_NODE_IP parameter in the configuration file is set to an FQDN (rather than IP address), an update of the PowerProtect Data Manager fails to migrate this parameter setting to the preferred node setting on the Assets page in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI.

The preferred node setting in an Oracle RAC environment is only applicable for a centralized protection policy, not for a self-service protection policy.

As a workaround, ensure that the RAC_BACKUP_NODE_IP parameter in the configuration file is set to the required IP address prior to updating the PowerProtect Data Manager from a previous version. Then the PowerProtect Data Manager update automatically migrates the RAC_BACKUP_NODE_IP parameter setting to the preferred node setting on the Assets page in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI.

Assign a preferred node in Oracle RAC environment provides details on the preferred node setting in an Oracle RAC environment.

Issue with AIX RAC cluster failover

After shutting down the first node of an AIX RAC cluster, backups do not start from the second node. Automatic failover does not work in this situation.

To resolve this issue, perform one of the following actions and then restart the agent service:

• Bring back up the first node of the cluster.
• Change the Preferred Node parameter of the RAC system to use the second node.

RAC cluster failure due to active node issue

In an Oracle RAC cluster, if the active node database service is stopped or the active node is down, then any configure, backup, or delete requests cause PowerProtect Data Manager to continually report a failure.

To resolve this issue, perform one of the following actions:

• If it is stopped, start the active node database service.
• If it is down, bring up the active node.
• Remove the active node from the Oracle RAC cluster.
• In the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, select Infrastructure > Asset Sources and delete the related asset source.

Issue on AIX with ddbmcon process not exiting

On AIX, due to an Oracle OCI library issue, the ddbmcon process does not exit after completing all operations, which can cause different types of symptoms. The following symptoms can occur:

1. The ddbmcon process has a child process.
2. The process ID is 1 for the parent process of the ddbmcon process.
3. The process ID is not 1 for the parent process of the ddbmcon process and the debug log shows that the ddbmcon process finished all operations. However, the ddbmcon process does not exit.

These symptoms are caused by the Oracle bug 34372439, "OCI APPLICATION LOADING DLLS DYNAMICALLY HANGS".

As a workaround, contact Oracle to obtain the latest patch.

Edit Retention button is disabled for asset copies

On the Infrastructure > Assets page > Asset <asset name> page, the Edit Retention button is disabled.

The Edit Retention button is enabled only when the copy status of the asset source is Available. In detail, if deleting a copy of a protected asset fails, the Copy Status will be updated to another state from Available, and the Edit Retention button is disabled.

Workarounds are:

• Edit the retention period of an asset copy if its status is Available.
• Do not try deleting an asset copy before its retention period.