You can use the Data Protection for VMware command-line interface to
back up and restore virtual machines. You can also use the command
line to delete backups or backup schedules and view configuration
information.
The Data Protection for VMware command-line interface maintains
a common front end for Tivoli® Storage FlashCopy® Manager for VMware and Tivoli Storage
Manager for Virtual Environments. This
command-line interface can correlate the backups that are created
by the two products and two or more backup runs can become one “logical”
backup. The Data Protection for VMware command-line interface also
include a simple backup scheduler. Using this scheduler, you can configure
recurring backup tasks. The Data Protection for VMware command-line interface can
also be used for custom scripting or specialized external schedulers.
Command output
The
Data Protection for VMware command-line interface sends
its output to the
stdout and errors to the
stderr stream.
The output contains messages that start with a
"#" sign, followed
by a message tag identifier and some additional text. All output is
read line by line. Lines that do not start with a
"#" are considered
a multiple line message and belong to the last received tag identifier.
Return codes are displayed at the end of the command-line output.
Code
0 indicates that the command completed all
operations successfully,
1 indicates that the command
completed with at least one warning message. Investigate these warning
messages to prevent issues later on. Code
2 indicates
that the operation cannot be completed because an error occurred during
the command execution. Alternatively, issue the following command
to retrieve the return code:
- On Linux systems
- echo $?
You can also use these commands in a shell script to
evaluate the return code. The output of each command is explained
in the following command sections.