Backup Image

The backup image command creates an image backup of one or more volumes on your system.

You can use the backup image command to back up NTFS or ReFS, or unformatted RAW volumes. If a volume is NTFS-formatted, only those blocks that are used by the file system are backed up. On ReFS volumes, all blocks are backed up.

AIX operating systems If you set the imagegapsize option to 0, all blocks, including unused blocks at the end of the volume, are backed up.

AIX operating systems If you specify an AIX® JFS2 file system for image backup, only those blocks that are used by the file system are backed up. If you set the imagegapsize option to zero, all blocks, including blocks at the end of the volume, are backed up.

Notes:

By default, snapshot-based image backup is enabled for JFS2 volumes. To turn off snapshot-based image backups, set -snapshotproviderimage=NONE on this command.
For Linux® clients, image backup is only supported on partitions with id 0x83 or logical volumes that are created with the Linux Logical Volume Manager. Backing up other partitions, such as extended partitions that contain mounted file systems or database data, can produce inconsistent backup data if the data changes during the image backup operation.
For Linux clients on z Systems®, image backup of DASD devices with raw-track access mode is not supported. Only full-track access mode is supported.
Image backup is not supported on any GPFS file system.
The IBM® Storage Protect API must be installed to use the backup image command.
When you change the attribute of a JFS2 file system to an HSM-managed file system, an image backup is not done for that file system.
Image backup is not supported for partitions that reside on a multipath device.
Image backup is supported for partitions on multipath devices. To back up partitions on multipath devices, specify the -snapshotproviderimage=NONE option when you issue the backup image command.

Important: The last incremental backup time refers to the server time and the file modification time refers to the client time. If the client and server time are not synchronized, or the client and server are in different time zones, this affects incremental-by-date backup and image backup where mode=incremental.

The client backs up the files that have modification dates and times (on the client) that are later than the date and time of the last incremental backup of the file system on which the file is stored (on the server).

If the server time is ahead of the client time, incremental-by-date backups, or image backup with mode=incremental, skip the files, which had been created or modified after the last incremental or image backup with a modification date earlier than the last incremental backup time stamp.

If the client time is ahead of the server time, all files that had been created or modified before the last incremental or image backup and have a modification time stamp later than the last incremental backup time stamp, are backed up again. Typically, these files would not get backed up because they had already been backed up.

The backup date can be checked by the query filespace command.

Note:

The account that is running the backup-archive client must have administrator authority to successfully perform any type of image backup.
The API must be installed to use the backup image command.

Oracle Solaris operating systems Linux operating systems AIX operating systems The backup-archive client must support the raw device type on the specific platform to perform an image backup of a raw device. You can perform an image backup only on local devices. Clustered devices or file systems as well as devices or file systems that are shared between two or more systems are not supported. If you want to perform an image backup for a file system that is mounted on a raw device, the raw device must be supported.

Use the include.image option to include a file system or logical volume for image backup, or to specify volume-specific options for image backup.

The backup image command uses the compression option.

Note: When an image backup is interrupted or fails due to some reason, the client attempts to clean up the incomplete backup on the IBM Storage Protect server when the image backup is run again. If the server option BACKDEL is set to Yes, the client will remove the incomplete image backup before attempting another image backup. If the BACKDEL option is set to No, the client will inactivate the incomplete backup. The inactivated backup will expire according to the policy definition on the server.

Supported Clients

Oracle Solaris operating systems Linux operating systems AIX operating systems This option is valid for AIX, Linux, and Oracle Solaris clients.

Windows operating systems This command is valid for all Windows platforms.

Syntax

Parameters

filespec

Specifies the name of one or more logical volumes. If you want to back up more than one file system, separate their names with spaces. Do not use pattern matching characters. If you do not specify a volume name, the logical volumes that are specified with the domain.image option are processed. If you do not use the domain.image option to specify file systems to process, an error message is displayed and no image backup occurs.

Oracle Solaris operating systems Linux operating systems AIX operating systems Specify the file space over which the logical volume is mounted or the logical volume name. If there is a file system that is configured in the system for a given volume, you cannot back up the volume with the device name.

For example, if the /dev/lv01 file space is mounted on the /home volume, you can issue

backup image
/home

, but

 backup image
/dev/lv01

fails with an error:

ANS1063E Invalid path specified

There is a default limit of 20 operands. You can use the -removeoperandlimit option to specify that the 20-operand limit is removed. When the -removeoperandlimit option is used, the number of operands you can specify is restricted only by available resources or other operating system limits. For example, remove the 20 operand limit to backup 21 file specifications:

backup image -removeoperandlimit filespec1 filespec2 ... filespec21

Note: For Sun systems, specify either a file system name or a raw device name (block device type).

Windows operating systems Image backup is only supported on a volume that has a mount or a drive letter assigned to it. A volume without a drive letter or mount point cannot be backed up.

Table 1. Backup Image command: Related options
Option	Where to use
asnodename	Client options file (dsm.opt) or command line.
asnodename	Client system options file (dsm.sys) or command line.
compressalways	Client system options file (dsm.sys) or command line.
compressalways	Client options file (dsm.opt) or command line.
compression	Client options file or command line.
dynamicimage	Use with the backup image command or the include.image option in the options file.
imagegapsize	Use with the backup image command, the include.image option, or in the options file.
mode	Command line only.
postsnapshotcmd	Use with the backup image command, the include.image option, or in the options file.
presnapshotcmd	Use with the backup image command, the include.image option, or in the options file.
removeoperandlimit	Command line only.
snapshotcachesize	Use with the backup image command, the include.image option, or in the options file.
snapshotproviderimage	Client options file or with include.image option.

Examples

Task

Back up the /home/test file space over which the logical volume is mounted and perform an image incremental backup that backs up only new and changed files after the last full image backup.

dsmc backup image /home/test -mode=incremental

Task

Back up a volume that has no drive letter but is mounted as a mount point.

dsmc backup image m:\mnt\myntfs

Task

Back up the h drive by using an image incremental backup. An image incremental backup backs up files that are new or changed since the last full image backup.

dsmc backup image h: -mode=incremental

Task

Perform a static image backup of the logical volume that is mounted at the /home directory.

dsmc backup image /home -snapshotproviderimage=none

Task

Perform an offline image backup of the f drive.

dsmc backup image f: -snapshotproviderimage=none

Task

Perform a dynamic image backup of the logical volume that is mounted at the /home directory.

Command: dsmc backup image /home -dynamicimage=yes

Task

Perform a snapshot image backup of the /home directory.

AIX client: dsmc backup image /home

    -snapshotproviderimage=JFS2

LINUX client: dsmc backup image /home

    -snapshotproviderimage=LINUX_LVM

Task

Perform an online image backup of the f drive.

dsmc backup image f: -snapshotproviderimage=VSS

Task

Back up the /dev/lv01 raw logical volume.

dsmc backup image /dev/lv01

Task

Back up the f drive, which is mapped to a volume that has not been formatted with a file system.

dsmc backup image f:

Task

Perform a raw image backup of the whole disk or partition via the /dev/mapper/mpath1 multipath device.

dsmc backup image /dev/mapper/mpath1 -snapshotproviderimage=none