Netbackup Email Notifications Settings and Their Behaviors

Email Notifications Settings and Their Behaviors
 

1. Purpose
2. Assumptions
3. Applicability
4. Master server settings
5. Client settings
6. Table of effects
 

1. PURPOSE

This article is presented to address the lack of clarity in the e-mail notification settings that are available in the NetBackup GUI under Host Properties both for the master server and clients. These settings can override each other and, without a clear understanding of their purpose, can become quite complex to troubleshoot. This data is presented in both textual and tabular form in such a way that helps expedite the troubleshooting process when a customer is not getting the expected emails or is getting more emails than intended.
 

2. ASSUMPTIONS

The assumption is made that you have configured blat and nbmail.cmd as specified in TechNotes 256043 and 254809 (linked below).
 

3. APPLICABILITY

This article applies to all currently supported versions of NetBackup at the time of its writing (11/10/2008). All patch levels and all platforms of NetBackup 5.0, 5.1, 6.0, and 6.5 should have the same behavior using these settings. If this is found not to be the case, please use the article feedback section on the right hand column of this page so that corrections may be made.
 

4. MASTER SERVER SETTINGS

The applicable settings on the Master Server are the following:
 

· Global Attributes

o Administrator's e-mail address

· Universal Settings

o Client administrator's e-mail

o Client sends mail

o Server sends mail

Global Attributes

The Global Attributes section contains the Administrator's e-mail address field which will be the email NetBackup feeds to nbmail.cmdwhen a backup finishes with a nonzero status. Putting an email address in Global Attributes will cause NetBackup to send e-mail notifications for only non-zero backup statuses.

Universal Settings

The Universal Settings section contains the Client administrator's e-mail field which will be the email address NetBackup feeds tonbmail.cmd when a backup finishes with any status. Putting the email address in Universal Settings will cause NetBackup to send e-mail notifications for all backup statuses. This field exists on each client and could be setup to email the client's administrator with backup updates for all backups, failed and successful.

Note: Using Universal Settings > Client administrator's e-mail in conjunction with Global Attributes > Administrator's e-mail addresswill not cause duplicate e-mails to be sent for one failed job.

Client sends mail and Server sends mail indicate whether the client that's being backed up will send the e-mail or the master server will. It's important to ensure that your clients and server have these set the same in a Windows environment where only the master is setup to utilize blat.

Example: If you set the master server to Server sends mail and the client to Client sends mail, even without specifying an email address into Client administrator's e-mail, the notification will fail. To fix this problem, set the client's Universal Settings to Server sends mail, or if the mailer is the client set the master's to Client sends mail.

5. CLIENT SETTINGS

The applicable settings on the Client are the following
 

· Universal Settings

o Client administrator's e-mail

o Client sends mail

o Server sends mail

The purpose of the Client administrator's e-mail setting is to allow a NetBackup administrator to be set in the Master Host Properties> Universal Settings in addition to each client's administrator so they can be notified on the backup statuses for their clients. This will send emails for all status codes for this client to the client 's administrator.

Client sends mail and Server sends mail indicate whether the client that's being backed up will send the e-mail or the master server will. It's important to ensure that clients and server have same settings.

6. TABLE OF EFFECTS

The following table is to show the results of combining various settings for the fields discussed in this document. For e-mail addresses consider A and B to be valid. This is not an exhaustive list of all possible setting combinations but should cover the most common configurations and their end results.

GA – Global Attributes
US – Universal Settings