Lotus Notes with NetWorker quick reference

This is a simple article which provides a quick reference to NetWorker backup and restores for Lotus Notes/Domino based systems.

Lotus Notes files backed up with NetWorker

NetWorker uses the NMDA module to backup a Lotus Notes/Domino server and it's databases. The NMDA distinguishes between certain files and backups them up according:

Table 1 — Lotus Notes NMDA file
FileComments
notes.ini NMDA considers this file to be a regular operating system file and backs up the file at the file system level.
.nsf .ntf .box NMDA considers these files to be Lotus Notes database files and backs up the files using the Lotus Notes API for databases.
.ncf .njf .nrf .dic .dsk .id NMDA considers these files to be regular operating system files and backs up these files at the file system level.
transaction logs (archive mode) NMDA considers these files to be regular operating system files and backs up these files at the file system level.

Note: NMDA does not backup transaction logs in circular or linear mode.

Backing up the Lotus Notes data, NMDA creates a browselist file and backs up the file. The browselist is required for restores because the browselist contains browsing information for the backed-up Lotus files.

Note: If a Lotus data backup succeeds but the browselist backup fails, you cannot use the NetWorker User for Lotus GUI to recover the data.

Full and Incremental backups

NMDA supports both fill and incremental backups for Lotus Notes

Full backups

NMDA backs up the specified files, regardless of whether or not the files have changed since the last backup operation. If you enable Lotus transactional logging and set the logging to archive mode, NMDA does not back up the logs unless you request the log backup through the NSR_BACKUP_LOGS_MODE parameter setting or corresponding wizard option.

Incremental backups

The behavior of an incremental backup depends on the settings for Lotus transactional logging on the Domino server:

  • If you enable Lotus transactional logging and set the logging to archive mode, then an incremental backup backs up specific files:
    • Backs up the transaction logs unless the NSR_INCR_BACKUP_LOGS_MODE setting or corresponding wizard option specifies to not back up the logs.
    • Backs up any database files that are not logged and have changed since the last backup.
    • Backs up the database files that are logged and have had their property changed since the last backup of the database.
  • If you disable Lotus transactional logging (or enable the logging but do not set it to archive mode), then an incremental backup backs up only the database files that have changed since the last backup.The incremental backup always backs up the nondatabase files that have changed since the last backup, regardless of the transactional logging mode.

Lotus Notes restores

Restores are performed by a user by running the nsrnotesrc command. The nsrnotesrc process performs the following actions:

  • Queries the NetWorker server to obtain a list of Lotus Notes files to recover, based on the specified options.
  • Spawns child nsrnotesrc processes to recover Lotus Notes data. The number of processes spawned depends on the number of Lotus Notes files for recovery and the specified parallelism.
  • When the child processes finish the recovery successfully, restores the Lotus Notes logs, if requested by the Lotus Notes server.

Each child nsrnotesrc process performs the following actions for the subset of files that it restores:

  • Works with the NetWorker server services to mount the volumes required for the restore and read the data from the volumes.
  • Writes the data to the disk.

Lotus Notes restore types

NMDA supports the following types of restore methods for Lotus data:

  • Database-level (file-level) restore — Restores the databases of a Lotus Notes server.
  • Document-level restore — Restores modified or deleted Lotus Notes documents in a single database, whether the database is logged or not:
    • You can perform document-level recovery of deleted Lotus Notes documents in the local database through the nsrdocrc command line program.
    • On Windows systems only, you can use the Lotus client GUI to perform document-level recovery of modified an d deleted Notes documents either in the local Lotus Notes or in a remote Lotus Notes database.

NetWorker User for Lotus

On Microsoft Windows based systems you install the NetWorker User for Lotus GUI program when you install NMDA

The NetWorker User for Lotus provides a graphical interface for performing manual backups and recovery operations. You cannot use the NetWorker User for Lotus to perform a transaction logs only backup.

Table 2 — NMDA Lotus components
ComponentDescription
nsrdoclb.dll On Windows systems only. Library for document-level recovery of Lotus Notes data. The library is only in the 32-bit NMDA install package due to both the Lotus client and Admin clients are 32-bit only.
nsrdocrc/
nsrdocrc.exe
Program for document-level recovery for Lotus Notes data.
nsrlotus_remrecov/
nsrlotus_remrecov.bat
Script that enables NMDA to perform a directed recovery from the NetWorker User for Lotus program on Windows
nsrnotesrc/
nsrnotesrc.exe
Program for recovery of Lotus Notes database files
nwbml.dll/
nwbml.exe
On Windows systems only. Library and program for the NetWorker User for Lotus.

NMDA Probes

The NMDA nsrdaprobe program checks for one of the following conditions for Lotus Notes, the nsrdaprobe program checks for the size of Domino transaction logs generated since the last backup of the Domino database specified by LOTUS_NSF_FILE in the NetWorker probe resource.

Note: For Lotus Notes circular and linear transaction logging, the change threshold value must be sufficiently smaller than the value specified by "Maximum log space" in the Domino server "Transactional Logging" configuration. This requirement ensures that a probe-based backup is triggered before the transaction log size exceeds the maximum log space value and causes transaction logs to be overwritten.

To use the NMDA nsrdaprobe program, you must include specific parameter settings in the Command Options attribute in the Probe resource, For a Lotus backup only, set the LOTUS_NSF_FILE parameter.

Note: The use of NetWorker multiplexing can improve backup performance, but it can adversely affect restore performance for Lotus Notes