retro client service turns off after reboot

[philcebutv]

Hi All,

 

I am having an issue when some of our mac clients not being backup properly. its either i have an error 1028 or 540 on the logs mostly in the morning. Our script is schedule to backup every night backing up 17 macs.

 

5-6 clients has the error above intermittently during the morning. I have notice that when a client reboots the server cannot access anymore the retro client.

 

Although when checking the retro client application in the affected client it says waiting for access and the button selected is ON

 

searching the forums I have found one trick to click ON and OFF button on retro client app while holding the command key.

 

This temporarily fix the issues but once the client reboots everything will go back to the state where the server cannot contact the clients..

 

clients are assigned Static IPs, I have different version for all the clients ranging from 6.1.107 to 6.2.229. Our retro server version is 6.1 with driver version 6.1.15.100. We are all on Mac OS X 10.5.6 and Mac OS X Server 10.5.6

 

there are a few clients with version 6.2.229 that works correctly. and most retro clients that works are version 6.1.107

 

There are times that when logging out the account of the certain clients the backup fails mostly on clients with version 6.2.229.

 

I have downgraded all those affecting clients to version 6.1.107 but the issues still persist..

 

anyone who can point me to a direction on solving this?

Edited April 7, 2009 by Guest

[philcebutv]

anyone who has idea regarding retrospect client service turning off when rebooted?

 

It seems like the service will not startup during reboot. I keep eyeing on the logs every morning and finding two or more clients are not been backup up and will always logs error -1208 or -504 then I keep on turning off and on the service while pressing the command key.

 

How can we solve this issue? How can i make this work? I am tired of keep going on to the client and turning off and on the service.

 

anyone?

Edited April 29, 2009 by Guest

[mhintz]

I have the same problem. I have been dealing with the issue for awhile hoping version 8 would resolve the problem but that has not been the case.

 

To keep from having to interrupt the user all the time, I have configured remote login on the clients and run the following commands to refresh the client:

 

sudo kill -TERM `ps -ef | grep retroclient | grep -v grep | awk '{print $2}'`

sudo /sbin/SystemStarter start "Network Backup"

 

It seems like the client service fires before the network is available and never recovers.

[philcebutv]

thanks you for this.. will this script work in leopard 10.5.6? I am also having this issue for some time now and get tired of going to each client resetting the retro service.

 

there must be a way for force start the service after reboot. Because some cleints of mine are just working fine when rebooting their machine.

Edited April 29, 2009 by Guest

[mhintz]

Yes, it works with 10.5.6. I have had some instances where the client was available after a reboot but these have been very few.

[philcebutv]

thanks for the confirmation.. out of 19 computers here 7 of it are having this issues. I have tried reinstalling the retro client app on these clients but still problem persists but never tried reinstalling the os from scratch..

[philcebutv]

... hoping version 8 would resolve the problem but that has not been the case.

 

there is like a heated discussion here at retro forum about using the version retro version 8. Below is the link

 

http://forums.dantz.com/showtopic.php?tid/30090/

 

 

 

[mhintz]

I don't think a new install of the OS will make a difference. I have set up fresh installs for new users and they have the problem from day one. The major headache for me started with the release of the 'Universal Mac Client' (6.2.229). At least I believe that is when the client process changed from pitond to retroclient. I am running 6.3.019 on all my macs now and it behaves the same way. I can hang a client just by unplugging the ethernet cable, counting to 10 and plugging it back in. It never recovers. About 15 of the 50+ mac clients we have are laptops that are disconnected from the network every day.

[mhintz]

Thanks for the warning. I have taken one of my five backup sets to use with 8. The rest are still on version 6.1.

[philcebutv]

Someone told me to use LINGON app.. just google it.. in order to create a startup command at boot time like the retro command you've just shared.

 

but only to those having retro turning service off issue.

 

I could try this later this week and see if this will temporarily solved the issue.

 

just an Out of topic question are you using tape backups on retrospect? what kind of tape device?

 

as we are on the lookout of implementing one here..

Edited April 29, 2009 by Guest

[mhintz]

Someone told me to use LINGON app.. just google it.. in order to create a startup command at boot time like the retro command you've just shared.

 

but only to those having retro turning service off issue.

 

I could try this later this week and see if this will temporarily solved the issue.

 

Thanks. I'll test this and let you know. I had thought about doing that before but 95% of my problem is laptop users closing their machine, disconnecting the cables and stuffing them in their bag for home. When they return, they connect the cables, open the laptop and start working, never logging out or restarting in the process. This virtually always hangs the client.

 

 

just an Out of topic question are you using tape backups on retrospect? what kind of tape device?

 

as we are on the lookout of implementing one here..

We use a Tandberg Data StorageLoader VXA-320. It works well for us but I have had it for several years so there may be something better out there.

[philcebutv]

I believe the lingon app has a settings that you can select to keep the service running no matter what happens this could possibly work for you and for us here. Let me know your progress with it.

 

I have no experience in tape backups and there are so many tape devices on the compatability database of retro site. I just want to hear from those that has experience of what tape devices people are using with retrospect

 

thanks for sharing though

Edited April 29, 2009 by Guest

[mhintz]

I believe the lingon app has a settings that you can select to keep the service running no matter what happens this could possibly work for you and for us here. Let me know your progress with it.

 

I'll give it a shot. I'm not holding much hope since in my experience, even though the client is deaf, the retroclient process is active and a port scan shows 497 is open. I'm not sure if launchd (the application configured by Lingon) can detect the 'deaf' state.

[clarifix]

Hi people,

I'm new to this forum. Just registered because I think I can make a contribution here.

 

I have this problem as well with Macs waking from sleep, they just aren't visible anymore to the retrospect server. This happens sometime, not always. Anyway. Grateful with the information found in this thread, I did some modifications to my Mac that make things work.

 

First of all, I pathed the /Library/StartupItems/RetroClient script.

In its standard configuration, it just doesn't provide the functionality you would expect.

It's only able to start the retroclient process, but cannot stop it.

So here's the patch:

#!/bin/sh

##
# Start retroclient (formerly pitond) daemon
#
#	please make sure this is saved with unix line endings
##

. /etc/rc.common

case $1 in 
start)
if [ -f "/Library/Preferences/retroclient.state" ] && [ -d "/Applications/Retrospect Client.app" ]; then
	ConsoleMessage "Starting Retrospect Client"
	/Applications/Retrospect\ Client.app/Contents/Resources/retroclient &
fi
;;

stop)
ConsoleMessage "Stopping Retrospect Client"
kill -TERM `ps -ef | grep retroclient | grep -v grep | awk '{print $2}'`
	;;

restart)
ConsoleMessage "Restarting Retrospect Client"
# this should work but it fails somehow in .wakeup
# kill -TERM `ps -ef | grep retroclient | grep -v grep | awk '{print $2}'`
# /Applications/Retrospect\ Client.app/Contents/Resources/retroclient &
# this works for me
/Applications/Retrospect\ Client.app/Contents/Resources/retroclient -ip &
  ;;

*)
  echo "$0: unknown argument: $1"
  ;;
esac

 

Secondly, I installed SleepWatcher , a daemon that watches sleep and wakeup, and installed the startupitem as well.

I read in the documentation that I can now give commands on sleep and wake by putting them in ~/.sleep and ~/.wakeup.

Unfortunately the scripts run with the corresponding user privileges, and restarting retroclient requires root.

 

So I added these lines in the /etc/rc.wakeup script:

 

if [ -x "/private/var/root/.wakeup" ] ; then
       logger -t $0 "executing .wakeup of user root"
       /private/var/root/.wakeup
fi

 

I then put a file ".wakeup" in /var/root/ (and just to be sure I did a "chmod +x .wakeup" ).

In the file is the following one liner:

/sbin/SystemStarter restart "Network Backup"

 

When my Mac wakes up from sleep now, it restarts the retroclient daemon. Did a few tests with it, and it seems to work OK.

 

I hope this helps.

[philcebutv]

clarifix,

 

this is really a nice setup.. Mhintz will greatly benefit on your scripts and setup. This I think would solve his issues on clients turns off by itself when out of the network and possibly mine. Thanks for sharing your script.

 

Edited May 4, 2009 by Guest