IMPORTANT - PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING:
A problem with the way the TSM 4.1.2 client for Windows handles certain
international characters in file and directory names has recently been
discovered. APAR IC29552 has been opened for the problem, and the client
has been removed from the Web site and anonymous FTP server.
Fixtest 4.1.2.12 will correct the problem, and will be available soon from
the Tivoli web page http://www.tivoli.com/support/storage_mgr/clients.html.
The "Tivoli Storage Manager - Open Problems" page,
http://www.tivoli.com/support/storage_mgr/open_problem.html, will contain
more information on the fixtest and its utility as it becomes available.
BACKGROUND
Microsoft Windows allows file names to be created that contain any
combination of upper- and lower-case characters, and the file system will
maintain the given casing for a file. This is known as "case preserving".
However, the casing of a file name by itself does not distinguish one file
from another. This is known as "case insensitive". For example, MYFILE.TXT,
MyFile.txt, and myfile.TXT are all considered to be the same file. This is
as opposed to UNIX, where these would be considered three separate files.
In order to facilitate TSM support for case preserving, case insensitive
file names, all Windows file backups are stored on the TSM server with the
file names converted to upper case. This is done in order for the TSM
server to recognize that MYFILE.TXT, myfile.txt, and MyFile.txt all refer
to the same file name. The information necessary to restore the files with
their correct casing is kept elsewhere in the database.
THE PROBLEM
A problem in the TSM 4.1.2 client for Windows has recently been discovered
that can cause files with certain international characters in their names
(such as a 'u' with an umlaut: ü) to be stored incorrectly on the TSM
server. That is, the problem characters are not converted to uppercase
(i.e. ü is not properly converted to Ü). As a result, incremental backup
operations may not handle these files properly. Symptoms are varied, but
may include the following:
Backup versions of files with these international characters that were
created with a client version prior to 4.1.2 will be expired. Because this
will cause the VERDELETED setting of the management class's copygroup to go
into effect, older backup versions may be deleted from the server. These
versions can no longer be recovered.
The existing files with these characters in their names will be backed up
during each incremental backup cycle, regardless of whether the file has
changed. Prior versions of the file will be deleted from the TSM server
based on the VEREXISTS setting. As a result, the server may have multiple
backup copies of the same state of the file, and truly different versions
of the file may have been deleted.
The following messages will be displayed during backups, and logged to
dsmerror.log:
ANS1228E Sending of object <filename> failed
ANS1304W Active object not found
If a directory name contains one of these characters, files and
subdirectories within that directory will also be expired and may not be
restorable.
WHAT IBM/TIVOLI IS DOING ABOUT THIS
Here are the actions that we are taking or have taken to date:
1) We have opened a severity 1 APAR, IC29552, to address this problem.
2) We have removed the TSM 4.1.2 Windows client from the FTP site. If you
have downloaded, but not installed the 4.1.2 client, we strongly urge you
to not install this code; rather, you should delete the downloaded image
from your systems.
3) The TSM 4.1.2 Windows client was originally included in the TSM 4.1.2
Windows server installation package. That server package has been removed
from the FTP site, and replaced with a TSM 4.1.2 server package that has
the client install disabled. Due to the complexities involved in removing
the files that comprise the client, those files have not been physically
removed from the server install package. However, using the SETUP.EXE
program, the client will not be installable. We strongly urge you to not
attempt to use any means external to the SETUP.EXE program to install the
client files.
4) A fixtest is being developed and tested that will resolve this problem
such that new backup versions of files will be properly converted to upper
case when stored on the TSM server. The www.tivoli.com/support/storage_mgr
web page sections for Flashes and for Downloads will be posted when the
fixtest is actually available for download.
5) A special utility is being developed that will expire all the
incorrectly cased versions of the files. The
www.tivoli.com/support/storage_mgr web page sections for Flashes and for
Downloads will be posted when the special utility client is actually
available for download. Note that the details for using the utility will be
included in a README file that accompanies the utility.
6) We are working on notifying all of our customers in the most expedient
manner possible.
7) We are continuing our escape and root-cause analyses in order to prevent
this kind of problem from happening again.
CIRCUMVENTIONS
Remove the 4.1.2 client and install version 4.1.1. Note: when the first
incremental backup is run with the 4.1.1 client, any files backed up
incorrectly by the 4.1.2 client will be expired (made inactive). You may
wish to consider increasing the VERDELETED value of your backup copygroups
to the same value as VEREXISTS in order to preserve all inactive versions.
For example, suppose VEREXISTS = 5 and VERDELETED = 3. After running the
4.1.1 client, the incorrectly backed up files will be expired. If there
were 5 versions, the 2 older versions will automatically be deleted because
of the VERDELETED attribute. If you wish to ensure that all 5 versions are
retained, then you will need to increase VERDELETED to 5.
If you do go back to 4.1.1, you may still see the ANS1304W error messages
for the backup versions created by the 4.1.2 client whose names include the
problem international characters. However all new backups will revert to
being backed up with the correct casing, and files will not be backed up
again unless they have actually changed. The utility that will be delivered
with the 4.1.2.12 fixtest will prevent any more of these error messages.
We spend considerable time and effort testing our product in all of the
supported language environments, and we regret that this problem escaped
our labs. We apologize for the inconveniences caused by this problem.
|
