There are two types of backup using ADSM: incremental and selective. To back up files, select one of the following:
Your administrator may have set up schedules to back up files on your workstation automatically. See Chapter 5. "Automating ADSM Tasks" for information on checking and running the schedules available to you. The following sections cover how to back up files without using a schedule.
The most effective method of maintaining a set of backup version of your most important files is to run incremental backups regularly. There are two types
There are two types of incremental backup:
| Note: | Partial incremental backups should not be used until at least one full incremental backup has been run. Without running one full incremental backup prior to running a partial incremental backup will always back up every file (even if the file has not changed). |
Full incremental -- To back up your new files and files that have changed since the last backup, you can use a full incremental backup. ADSM marks backup versions inactive if you erased the original file from your workstation after a full incremental backup. See "Running a Full Incremental Backup" for how to perform full incremental backups.
All of this processing is required to maintain your backups according to the policies defined in the management classes.
Incremental by date -- To quickly back up your files that have changed since the last incremental backup, use incremental by date. This backup type does not mark backup versions inactive if the original file was erased from your workstation. Nor does it associate backup versions with new management classes if you changed management class assignments. A full incremental ensures that the backups kept on the ADSM server are managed according to your installation's storage management policies (see "Understanding Storage Management Policies"). It ensures that your backup storage accurately reflects the state of your workstation storage. A partial incremental does not ensure that the server reflects the exact state of your workstation. For example, files that would normally be backed up during a full incremental might not be backed up during a partial incremental. Also, old files that should be deleted from the server might not be deleted.
In a partial incremental, however, only certain information is considered when deciding whether to back up a file. You can specify one of two types of partial incremental backups:
Files added at the client after the last incremental backup, but with a modification date earlier than that last incremental, are not backed up. Incremental by date updates the date and time of the last incremental at the server.
In both types of partial incremental, files are not expired or rebound on the server; in addition, the copy group's frequency attribute of the management classes is ignored.
In a partial back up, files are not expired or rebound on the server, and the copy group frequency attribute of the management classes is ignored. Because they do not change the last changed date and time, changes to OS/2 extended attributes and IBM OS/2 LAN Server Access Control Profile (ACP) data are not backed up during an incremental by date. You can use the query filespace command to determine the date and time of the last incremental backup of the complete file system.
A partial incremental should complete more quickly than a full incremental and require less memory. Thus, if you are constrained for time or machine memory, you might want to perform a partial incremental. Use partial incremental only if you must meet a limited backup time window, and a full incremental takes longer than the allotted time. Periodically perform full incremental backups to bring the ADSM server in line with your workstation's status. For example, if you have only a limited time during the week to perform backups, but extra time on the weekend, you can use partial backups on the weekdays, and then use full incremental backups on the weekends.
To run a full incremental backup of your new and changed files:
ADSM tells you when the backup is complete. The first time you do an incremental backup, ADSM has to back up all your files, which can take a long time. Subsequent backups usually do not take as long.
To run a backup quickly, use incremental backup by date as follows:
During a backup, ADSM uses the Backup Status window to provide you status statistics on various items. ADSM does not use the Backup Status window with the command line or schedule backups.
Usually, there are files on your disk that you do not want to back up. These files might be operating system or application files that could be easily recovered by reinstalling the program, or any other file that you could easily rebuild.
You can use the include, exclude, and inclexcl options in the ADSM options file to tell ADSM which files to exclude from backup processing. ADSM honors the include-exclude list whether you are doing an incremental or selective backup. ADSM backs up any file that is not explicitly excluded. You do not need to use an include option to include specific files unless those files are in a directory you are trying to exclude. For more information on setting up an include-exclude list, see "Creating an Include-Exclude List".
This section discusses some advanced considerations for using incremental backup. You do not need to understand this information in order to use ADSM for basic work.
You can perform an incremental backup from the command line by using the incremental command. For example, to back up the c: drive, issue:
dsmc incremental c:
If you do not indicate the drives you want backed up, ADSM uses your default domain (see "Setting Your Default Domain"). You can add drives to the default domain with the domain option. For example, if your default domain contains hard drives c: and d:, you can back up those drives plus the diskette in drive a: using:
dsmc incremental -domain="a:"
To start an incremental by date, add the incrbydate option:
dsmc incremental -incrbydate
When the incremental command completes, ADSM provides you with statistics similar to those that display in the GUI's Backup Status window. Similar statistics are produced by the selective and archive commands. These also show up in the schedule log for scheduled commands. See Incremental for more information about the incremental command.
ADSM backs up drives based on the drive label, not the drive letter. If a drive has no label, ADSM cannot back it up. This use of drive labels lets you do things like back up different diskettes from the a: drive.
Each drive label results in ADSM maintaining a separate drive for restore or retrieve in the Drive Information window. These labels become the names of file spaces on the ADSM server.
If you change the label of a drive you have already backed up, ADSM sees it as a new drive and does not relate it to your previous drive.
Because ADSM uses the labels to manage your backups and archives, you occasionally need to use those labels to find your data when using ADSM commands. For example, if you try to restore a file using d:\projx\file.exe as a file specification, ADSM substitutes the current label of your D: drive for the d:. If your d: drive's label is D-DISK, d:\projx\file.exe becomes {d-disk}\projx\file.exe, the label being enclosed in braces.
If the label of the d: drive does not match a file space name on the ADSM server, ADSM cannot find your files. A mismatch between a label and file space name might happen if you relabel your drives, or if you access ADSM from a different workstation than the one from which you backed up the files. If you have not relabeled the drive, and you are at the same workstation where the file was backed up, then you can use the drive letter as a short-hand version of the file space name (drive label).
When you start ADSM, or use the incremental command without indicating drives, ADSM automatically selects your default domain as the drives you want to process. This domain is set with the domain option in the options file (see Domain). If you do not have the domain option set, the default domain is all local hard drives (the drives in your workstation) that have a drive label.
For full incrementals, ADSM considers a file to be changed if any of these items are different from the last backup taken:
When you request an incremental backup, ADSM backs up a file if all of the following requirements are met, in that the:
When you run an incremental backup, ADSM also backs up all directory information, except for empty directories, which are not backed up. You can exclude the files within a directory, but you cannot exclude a directory from being backed up. Directories are counted in the number of objects backed up.
ADSM uses management classes to determine how to manage your backups on the ADSM server. Every time you back up a file, the file is assigned a management class. The management class used is either a default chosen for you, or one you assigned to the file using the INCLUDE option in the include-exclude list. The selected management class must contain a backup copy group in order for the file to be backed up. See Chapter 5. "Automating ADSM Tasks" for more information on management classes and how to assign them to files.
Some files on your system may be in use when you try backing them up (these are called open files, because they are opened by an application for its use). Because an open file may change, it is likely that any backup of an open file will not correctly reflect the contents of the file at a given time. There is no problem, however, if the file is not changed during backup, even if it is open.
If you find that certain files are not getting backed up because they are open and get changed when you try backing them up (or when the backup schedule starts), you need to consider your options if the file is:
If you are not using a schedule for the backup, ensure that you close the application that uses the file before you start the backup.
You can use ADSM to back up specific files, a group of files with similar names, or entire directories. This is called a selective backup.
You can select the files you want to back up either by searching for a file specification (the path, name, and extension of the file) or by selecting the files or directories from a directory list.
To back up a file or a group of files, you may navigate the directory tree and select files, or use the Search function to locate files.:
Filtering a directory tree task lets you display, in the right hand side section of the file tree, the files that match the filter criteria you specified for the filter. Any files that do not match the filter criteria do not display. To filter a directory tree in preparation for your back up:
This section discusses some advanced considerations for using selective backup. You do not need to understand this information in order to use ADSM for basic work.
You can use the selective command to back up specific files. Use wildcards to back up more than one file at a time. If you back up a directory, you can use the subdir=yes option to include all the subdirectories under that directory in the backup.
For example, to back up the d:\proj directory and its subdirectories, use:
dsmc selective d:\proj\ -subdir=yes
You can use more than one file specification on the selective command. For example, to back up the a:\h1.doc and a:\test.doc files, use:
dsmc selective a:\h1.doc a:\test.doc
See "Incremental Backup: Starting With a Command" for an explanation of the statistics that ADSM provides after processing an incremental, selective, or archive command. For more information, see Selective.
To sort the files in the File List, select the Sort by item from the View menu. You can sort a file list, whether you are backing up, restoring, archiving, or retrieving them. Sorting files by last modification date is especially useful if you are trying to recover files to their state as of a particular date.
When you request a selective backup, ADSM backs up a file if all of the following requirements are met, in that the:
When you run a selective backup, ADSM also backs up all directory information. You can exclude the files within a directory, but you cannot exclude a directory from being backed up. Directories are counted in the number of files backed up.