RetroISA Questions

[ferthalangur]

Upgraded my server to Engine 10.2.0.201 yesterday. I have not yet upgraded any clients from 9.0.2.

 

I noticed that my system log was getting full of messages from RetroISA:

Jul 18 16:39:36 %%SERVERNAME%% com.retrospect.retroisa[7334]: | ISAVol::doIsaTreeChanged: start update on volpath "/Volumes/Server HD/", 7/18/2013 4:39:36 PM
Jul 18 16:39:36 %%SERVERNAME%% com.retrospect.retroisa[7334]: #2> ISAVol::CheckPrivatePathOption: PmcGetPrivate = 0x0
Jul 18 16:39:37 %%SERVERNAME%% com.retrospect.retroisa[7334]: #2>
Jul 18 16:39:37 %%SERVERNAME%% com.retrospect.retroisa[7334]: ISAVol::doIsaTreeChanged: starting pass four - rescan 4 folders for "/Volumes/Server HD/", 7/18/2013 4:39:37 PM
Jul 18 16:41:30 %%SERVERNAME%% com.retrospect.retroisa[7334]: #2>
Jul 18 16:41:30 %%SERVERNAME%% com.retrospect.retroisa[7334]: | ISAVol::doIsaTreeChanged: start update on volpath "/Volumes/DATA1/", 7/18/2013 4:41:30 PM
Jul 18 16:41:30 %%SERVERNAME%% com.retrospect.retroisa[7334]: #2> ISAVol::CheckPrivatePathOption: PmcGetPrivate = 0x0
Jul 18 16:41:30 %%SERVERNAME%% com.retrospect.retroisa[7334]: #2>
Jul 18 16:41:30 %%SERVERNAME%% com.retrospect.retroisa[7334]: ISAVol::doIsaTreeChanged: starting pass five - update 1 folders for "/Volumes/DATA1/", 7/18/2013 4:41:30 PM
Jul 18 16:41:31 %%SERVERNAME%% com.retrospect.retroisa[7334]: #2>
Jul 18 16:41:31 %%SERVERNAME%% com.retrospect.retroisa[7334]: ISAVol::doIsaTreeChanged: "/Volumes/DATA1/": rescanned 0, updated 1, consolidated 0, ignored 0
Jul 18 16:41:31 %%SERVERNAME%% com.retrospect.retroisa[7334]: #2>
Jul 18 16:41:31 %%SERVERNAME%% com.retrospect.retroisa[7334]: ISAVol::doIsaTreeChanged: "/Volumes/DATA1/": total time was 0 seconds (rescanning 0 seconds, updating 0 seconds, fixup 0 seconds)
Jul 18 16:41:31 %%SERVERNAME%% com.retrospect.retroisa[7334]: #2>
Jul 18 16:41:31 %%SERVERNAME%% com.retrospect.retroisa[7334]: - ISAVol::doIsaTreeChanged: finished update on volpath "/Volumes/DATA1/", 7/18/2013 4:41:31 PM
Jul 18 16:46:30 %%SERVERNAME%% com.retrospect.retroisa[7334]: #2>
Jul 18 16:46:30 %%SERVERNAME%% com.retrospect.retroisa[7334]: | ISAVol::doIsaTreeChanged: start update on volpath "/Volumes/DATA1/", 7/18/2013 4:46:30 PM
Jul 18 16:46:30 %%SERVERNAME%% com.retrospect.retroisa[7334]: #2>
Jul 18 16:46:30 %%SERVERNAME%% com.retrospect.retroisa[7334]: ISAVol::doIsaTreeChanged: starting pass five - update 1 folders for "/Volumes/DATA1/", 7/18/2013 4:46:30 PM
Jul 18 16:46:31 %%SERVERNAME%% com.retrospect.retroisa[7334]: #2> ISAVol::doIsaTreeChanged: "/Volumes/DATA1/": rescanned 0, updated 1, consolidated 0, ignored 0
Jul 18 16:46:31 %%SERVERNAME%% com.retrospect.retroisa[7334]: #2>
Jul 18 16:46:31 %%SERVERNAME%% com.retrospect.retroisa[7334]: ISAVol::doIsaTreeChanged: "/Volumes/DATA1/": total time was 0 seconds (rescanning 0 seconds, updating 0 seconds, fixup 0 seconds)
Jul 18 16:46:31 %%SERVERNAME%% com.retrospect.retroisa[7334]: #2> - ISAVol::doIsaTreeChanged: finished update on volpath "/Volumes/DATA1/", 7/18/2013 4:46:31 PM
Jul 18 16:48:27 %%SERVERNAME%% com.retrospect.retroisa[7334]: #2>
Jul 18 16:48:27 %%SERVERNAME%% com.retrospect.retroisa[7334]: ISAVol::doIsaTreeChanged: starting pass five - update 13 folders for "/Volumes/Server HD/", 7/18/2013 4:48:27 PM
Jul 18 16:48:31 %%SERVERNAME%% com.retrospect.retroisa[7334]: #2> ISAVol::doIsaTreeChangedThenSave: process more changed dirs before saving scan file

and so on, every five minutes. I realized that those volumes are going to be constantly changing, not only because that server is twiddling some files constantly, but also because my Retrospect Engine is on one of them, and all my Catalogs are on the other, so ISA will be constantly busy trying to keep up with file changes that are going to be skipped by my rules anyway. So I excluded those volumes in the retro_isa.ini.

 

Here are the questions I have:

(1) Does the RetroISA process have to be running on the server at all, if all the volumes are excluded? When I start upgrading my clients to Retrospect 10, and presuming that I wish RetroISA to do its thing on some of them, is there communication between RetroISA on the backup server and on the backup client, or does each client's retroclient process use the local RetroISA data, if available, for expediting the building of the snapshot?

 

(2) If I decide that RetroISA is not a good thing for my environment, am I going to have to log into each and every one of my backup clients and disable the RetroISA launchdaemon? If so, I think we need to put in a feature request to enable a "client-by-client" configuration of features like RetroISA, as well as the ones that we currently have a Global Preference for (e.g., "Allow Clients to Turn off Retrospect Client software" "Allow Clients to Back up on demand" ... etc.)

 

(3) Is there any way to read retroISA_log.utx? We have instructions on how to change the log size in the Instant Scan Advanced Options document ... but no way to read the log?

 

Thanks,

 

_rob_

[Mayoff]

1) If you are not doing local backups of the backup server (even though we suggest you do) or you don't care about scan times, you can disable Instant Scan on the backup server. It won't impact clients.

 

2) Turning off RetroISA on the client does require you to go to each client computer. 

 

3) The RetroISA file is  just a text file, but you won't learn much from reading it. Any text editor can open it.  That is something our engineers typically would ask for if needed.

[fredturner]

I noticed that my system log was getting full of messages from RetroISA:

Jul 18 16:39:36 %%SERVERNAME%% com.retrospect.retroisa[7334]: | ISAVol::doIsaTreeChanged: start update on volpath "/Volumes/Server HD/", 7/18/2013 4:39:36 PM
Jul 18 16:39:36 %%SERVERNAME%% com.retrospect.retroisa[7334]: #2> ISAVol::CheckPrivatePathOption: PmcGetPrivate = 0x0
Jul 18 16:39:37 %%SERVERNAME%% com.retrospect.retroisa[7334]: #2>

and so on, every five minutes. I realized that those volumes are going to be constantly changing, not only because that server is twiddling some files constantly, but also because my Retrospect Engine is on one of them, and all my Catalogs are on the other, so ISA will be constantly busy trying to keep up with file changes that are going to be skipped by my rules anyway. 

 

May I tag on my related question?

 

4. Is there a way to set RetroISA to _not_ spew so much gunk in the system log? It makes finding anything else of value extremely difficult. I've already tried setting the logging levels to 1 and 0 in the retro_isa.ini file and relaunching the RetroISA process, but the logs are still filling up w/ these excessive notifications.

 

Thanks,

Fred