On Oct 26, 2005, at 5:40 AM, Rainer Holzinger wrote:

after upgrading some TSM clients (on AIX and Solaris) to version
5.3.2.0
I have noticed that there's always a 'new' dsmerror.log file existing,
even if there hasn't been an error.

If dsmerror.log wasn't existing then the file size is 0 (zero)
bytes and
it seems dsmerror.log was created like the Unix 'touch' command is
doing. On the other hand, if dsmerror.log was existing and had entries
in, the timestamp has been updated with the one of the last scheduled
backup even if the wasn't an error in that backup operation.

Has this something to do with IBM's changes for the DSM_LOG
environment
variable and the check that dsmerror.log is writable?

Hi, Rainer -

Seems to be the case...
The client download Readme file goes into more detail than the client
manual:

"Initialization of the client and its various components has been
significantly revised. In particular, if you are using scripts to
accomplish certain tasks, you will notice:
The client application (dsmc, dsmadmc) will not run without a
writable error log. If a log is not present, one will be opened under
the uid of the user that invokes the application and with that user's
default permissions. This may mean that another user may not have
write permission and the client will not run.
There must always be an error log. If it is created new for each run
and there are no errors, it will be empty at process termination.
If the error log exists and is writable by the invoking user, it will
be preserved along with all permissions and ACLs if they exist. It is
strongly recommended that you create any required logs in a directory
and with proper permissions to allow all users write access."

   Richard Sims