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Veritas NetBackup™ Administrator's Guide, Volume I

Last Published: 2017-09-25

Product(s): NetBackup (8.1)

Promoting a copy to a primary copy

Each backup is assigned a primary copy. NetBackup uses the primary copy to satisfy restore requests. The first backup image that is created successfully by a NetBackup policy is the primary backup. If the primary copy is unavailable and a duplicate copy exists, select a copy of the backup and set it to be the primary copy.

NetBackup restores from the primary backup, and Vault duplicates from the primary backup. If your Vault profile performs duplication, you can designate one of the duplicates as the primary. In most circumstances, the copy remaining in the robot is the primary backup. When a primary backup expires, the next backup (if it exists) is promoted to primary automatically.

Use one of the following methods to promote a copy to a primary copy:

Promote a backup copy to a primary copy using search criteria	Promoting a backup copy to a primary copy using the NetBackup Administration Console
Promote a copy to a primary copy for many backups using the bpchangeprimary command	Promoting a copy to a primary copy for many backups
Promote a backup copy to a primary copy using the bpduplicate command	Promoting a backup copy to a primary copy using bpduplicate

Figure: Primary copy status

Promoting a backup copy to a primary copy using the NetBackup Administration Console

To promote a backup copy to a primary copy

In the NetBackup Administration Console, in the left pane, expand NetBackup Management > Catalog.
In the right pane, set up the search criteria for the image you want to promote to a primary copy. Be sure that you indicate a copy in the Copies field and not Primary Copy. Click Search Now.
Select the image you want to promote.
On the Actions menu, click Actions > Set Primary Copy.
After the image is promoted to the primary copy, the Primary Status column immediately reads Yes.

Promoting a copy to a primary copy for many backups

To promote a copy to a primary copy for many backups

You can also promote a copy to be a primary copy for many backups using the bpchangeprimary command. For example, the following command promotes all copies on the media that belongs to the SUN volume pool. The copies must have been created after August 8, 2012:
```
bpchangeprimary -pool SUN -sd 08/01/2012
```
In the next example, the following command promotes copy 2 of all backups of client_a. The copies must have been created after January 1, 2012:
```
bpchangeprimary -copy 2 -cl client_a -sd 01/01/2012
```

More information is available in the NetBackup Commands Reference Guide.

Promoting a backup copy to a primary copy using bpduplicate

To use bpduplicate to promote a backup copy to a primary copy

Enter the following command:
On Windows:
```
install_path\NetBackup\bin\admincmd\bpduplicate
	-npc pcopy -backupid bid
```
On UNIX:
```
/usr/openv/netbackup/bin/admincmd/bpduplicate -npc pcopy
	-backupid bid
```
Where:
pcopy is the copy number of the new primary copy.
bid is the backup identifier as shown in the Images on Media report.
Find the volume that contains the duplicate backup by using the Images on Media report.
Specify the backup ID that is known (and also the client name if possible to reduce the search time).
The bpduplicate command writes all output to the NetBackup logs. Nothing appears in the command window.
After the duplicate copy is promoted to the primary copy, use the client interface on the client to restore files from the backup.
For instructions, see the online Help in the Backup, Archive, and Restore client interface.

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