Compatibility


Hardware

What hardware does the mhvtl code base work with?

Tested and developed on Pentium x86 (32bit) and Pentium / AMD x86_64

New: IBM Z-Series. To quote:
“We just fired up the VTL on our z series IBM mainframe. Works like a charm.”


Software

What software does it work with?

Symantec NetBackup

  • 5.1 (Recommend 5.1MP4 minimum)
  • 6.0
  • 6.5.x
  • 7.0.x
  • 7.1.0.x
  • 7.5.0.x
  • 7.6.x
  • 7.7.x

Supports SCSI Persistent Reservation
Encryption via KMS (NetBackup 6.5.2 and later)

Note: All mhVTL code development is tested using NetBackup

Last set of testing (0.18-8 & -9) with NetBackup 7.0, I had to revert the ‘STK/L700’ to ‘SPECTRA/PYTHON’ change made back in Nov 2009. It’s just a manual edit of /etc/mhvtl/device.conf

The problem is that NetBackup 7.0 fails to extract the device serial number if SPECTRA/PYTHON is used and hence the automagic device discovery & configuration fails to place the drives within the robot.

Symantec BackupExec

For the extraordinary writeup : http://mhvtl.nimsa.us/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=37
Includes how to setup the scst (http://mhvtl.nimsa.us/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=32) to present the vtl via iSCSI

I’ve receive updates from a anonymous contributor identified as ‘nia’:

Successful Testing of Solaris running mhvtl via iSCSI: http://mhvtl.nimsa.us/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=47
Successful Testing of Sun NDMP working with mhvtl via iSCSI http://mhvtl.nimsa.us/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=53
Successful Testing of Linux ZFS-fuse file-system with “dedup on” for /opt/mhvtl http://mhvtl.nimsa.us/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=31
Successful Testing of HP Data Protector Linux media agent http://mhvtl.nimsa.us/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=51
Successful Testing for Backup Exec 2010 on Windows Server 2008 R2. Tested version of mhvtl is 0.18.2 via iSCSI http://mhvtl.nimsa.us/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=37#p159
Successful Testing for NetBackup 7 Master on Windows 2008 R2 via iSCS http://mhvtl.nimsa.us/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=37#p159

EMC/Legato NetWorker

Is no longer causing headaches !

Don’t use ‘STK/L700’ Use ‘SPECTRA/PYTHON’ instead.

Install at least mhvtl-2009-12-16.tgz (mhvtl-0.16-11).
Update: The latest mhvtl-2010-09-23.tgz (mhvtl-0.18-11) is a smoother ride when configuring the library using jbconfig.

Build kernel module from source (Note: /usr/src/packages/ is a SuSE RPM home dir. If you building on RedHat, then this will be /usr/src/redhat/)

# rpm -Uvh mhvtl-0.18-11.src.rpm
# cd /usr/src/packages/BUILD
# tar xvfz ../SOURCES/mhvtl-2009-11-23.tgz
# cd mhvtl-0.18/kernel
# make
# make install

Start the daemons

/etc/init.d/mhvtl start

Configure NetWorker as normal via jbconfig.

An ex colleague who has some very useful/helpful tips with NetWorker (If your interested in NetWorker, his blogs & tips are well worth following)

Carry a jukebox with you (if you’re using Linux)

Also a follow up article

NetWorker and linuxvtl, Redux

A detailed setup of CentOS + NetWorker, see:

New micromanual – LinuxVTL and NetWorker

CommVault

2015-02 – Thanks to Anup Sreedharan who has written up a 100+ page document which provides step-by-step instructions on setting up mhvtl + mhvtl-GUI + CommVault.

The guide is available via this link Comvault Implementation

Questions / kludos all go to Anup Sreedharan

Email: anupsreedharan@gmail.com
Linked in: http://in.linkedin.com/pub/anup-sreedharan/19/448/908

Bakbone Netvault

(2010-01-09) Thanks to Nick Couchman who has reported NetVault 8.x and mhvtl-2009-12-16 (mhvtl-0.16-11) do indeed work together.

To quote Nick “I have a NetVault 8.x installation here that I’m using, and I just installed LinuxVTL2 and am successfully backing up data from NetVault to LinuxVTL2. I’m not sure if any issues exist for restores and the link, but I’ll let you know if I run into anything. All appears to be working fine at this point! FWIW I’m running my NetVault server on RHEL5.”

TSM

Thanks to Bernardo Clavijo, TSM now works with mhvtl – Need at least 0.18-4 release.

Bacula

A report from Beat Rubischon to advise Bacula works also.

Two changes were needed on Bacula’s

bacula-sd.conf:

Device {
Name = Drive-1
Drive Index = 0
Media Type = LTO-4
Archive Device = /dev/nst0
AutomaticMount = yes;
AlwaysOpen = yes;
RemovableMedia = yes;
RandomAccess = no;
AutoChanger = yes
Alert Command = “sh -c ‘tapeinfo -f %c |grep TapeAlert|cat'”

# Needed for mhvtl tape drives
Hardware End of Medium = No
Fast Forward Space File = No
}

Multiple tape drives are supported too.

New: 2010-05-21
Report by Albert Pauw.. Many thanks.

# Needed for mhvtl tape drives
Hardware End of Medium = No
Fast Forward Space File = No

I have used it this way for the last two months, but due to some questions on the mhvtl forum I tried
bacula without these additions. Seems the latest versions of mhvtl work out of the box with bacula,
so these additions are not needed anymore.