ADSM-L

Re: incremental blocked by inclexcl file - Summary

2003-08-20 11:30:02
Subject: Re: incremental blocked by inclexcl file - Summary
From: David E Ehresman <deehre01 AT LOUISVILLE DOT EDU>
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2003 11:28:56 -0400
If you don't set DSM_CONFIG, the backup client will look for dsm.opt
first in the current directory and then in the install directory.  So
make a dsm.opt in your install directory with a servername statement for
your "normal" backups.  Then make another dsm.opt in some other
directory with a servername statement for your "alternate" backup.  cd
to the directory with the alternate dsm.opt before invoking the dsmc for
the alternate backup.

>>> rna AT FRONTIERNET DOT NET 8/20/2003 11:18:33 AM >>>
Thank you all for your suggestions on how to overcome my incremental
backup problem.

To summarize:  [my reactions are in braces]

ARCHIVE
-----------
>From Steve Harris and Dwight Cook:
   I could use "archive" instead of "incremental".  The archive
command
is not affected by the inclexcl file.  I would need to set up an
appropriate management class for archive as necessary.
    "This way you know exactly how long the data will be retained and
you
will have complete 'sets' of data"

[The problem I have with archive is that archiving 60 GB of data takes
a
long, long time.  Not all of the 60 GB changes each day, just a major
portion of it.]

Steve Harris  also suggested that I investigate AIX snapshots, as
discussed previously under the topic "IMAGE and INCREMENTAL backups"

[I suspect that the size of the data and local custom may also argue
against this approach]

DSM.SYS
-----------
>From  Richard Sims:
   [I should be using a dsm.sys file instead of dsm.opt to point to a
different inclexcl file.] "You have the choice of using a custom
options
file, as utilized via an environment variable; or, more simply, have
INCLEXCL name a symlink which can point to any number of stock files,
switching the symlink as needed before a run."

>From Remco Post:
   "Alternatively, you could run the daily backups with an alternate
dsm.sys file, while normal operation uses a dsm.sys that does exclude
these files."

[The TSM documentation indicates that  the DSM_CONFIG environment
variable
can point to a custom dsm.opt file and the DSM_DIR should point to the
directory containing the dsm.sys file and all other executable and
configuration files.   To me it therefore looks difficult to set up a
custom dsm.sys file unless I also copy all the files in the system's
/usr/tivoli/tsm/client/ba/bin directory.  If I had root privileges my
cron
script could shuffle files or symlinks around in that master
directory,
but that seems too messy and would definitely cause problems if my
custom
incremental ran at the same time as the nightly scheduled incremental
of
the whole system.   Reference: "Tivoli Storage Manager Installing the
Clients", "Installing UNIX Clients", "Setting Environment Variables"
_and_ "Creating and Modifying the Client User Options File" in "Tivoli
Storage Manager for UNIX Backup-Archive Clients Installation and
User's
Guide".]

[See also Wanda Prather's comment below]

PRESCHEDCMD AND POSTSCHEDCMD
---------------------------------------------
>From Remco Post:
   "What seems logical to do is have a preschedcmd to stop your
application and a postschedcmd that starts it, and not exclude the
files
from backup. In this way, you do have reliable backups of your data."

[This looks promising to me.  It might be the simplest approach to
implement]

TWO NODES FOR ONE HOST
-----------------------------------
>From  Wanda Prather:
   "If you back up once with the directory included, then back up
again
with the directory excluded, the EXCLUDE causes all your previous
backups
to be marked INACTIVE.  You can either use ARCHIVES, or back up that
directory using a second node name.  Don't try to alternate including
and
excluding the files."

>From Karel Bos:
   "Define a new node for this directory. Have it exclude everything
but
this directory. Define a pre- and postschedule command. And last
define
its own back-up schedule and install a new scheduler service. It then
is
completely independ of the back-ups and schedules for the "normal" part
of
the server."

[This looks even more promising as it has the advantage that my
application will only be down as long as the backup of my directory
requires.  I will consult with the campus TSM administrators and see
what
their feelings are]

Thanks again
--Richard

> I am using TSM  Client Version 4, Release 2, Level 1.0 on an
> AIX system.
> I have a directory (/s/sirsi/Unicorn) that contains 60 GB of
> data files,
> the largest of which are frequently updated.  The application
> that updates
> these files must be kept running with very little down time.
>
> We have nightly incremental backups running via the scheduler.  They
> usually start at about 22:00, but the actual start time
> varies, depending
> on what other backups the server is performing.  In order to prevent
> /s/sirsi/Unicorn from being backed up while the application
> is live, we
> exclude the directory and its children in the inclexcl file.
>
> I would like to write a script to be run from crontab that
> shuts down the
> application, does an incremental backup, and then restarts the
> application.  However, I find that because the directory is
> excluded in
> the inclexcl file, the incremental job of course fails to
> backup anything.
>
> So... Is there any way to override the inclexcl file temporarily
while
> manually doing an incremental command?  I can find no command
> line option
> that would help.  And my attempts to create a custom user dsm.opt
file
> pointing to a different inclexcl file only resulted in an error:
> ANS1036S Invalid option 'INCLEXCL' found in options file
> '/s/sirsi/dsm.opt'
>
> Any suggestions would be welcome.  Thank you.
>

Richard Anderson
Stanford University Libraries

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