Client options file overview

You set (specify) client options and values in a client options file. Client options can also be set on the server in a client option set. Client options that are set on the server in a client option set override client options that are set in the client options file.

Windows operating systems On Windows systems, the default client options file is named dsm.opt.

On AIX®, HP-UX, Linux, Mac, and Solaris systems, the default client options file is named dsm.opt. For these operating systems, two files contain backup-archive client options:

The client-user options file. The default name for this file is dsm.opt. For brevity, this file is often called the client options file.
The client-system options file. The default name for this file is dsm.sys. The client-system options file is an editable file that identifies the server and communication method, and provides the configuration for backup, archiving, hierarchical storage management, and scheduling. For brevity, this file is often called the system options file.

You can create multiple client options files. If your client options file is not named dsm.opt, or if dsm.opt is not in the default directory, use the OPTFILE client option to tell the backup-archive client which file to read the options and parameters from when the backup-archive client is started.

AIX operating systems HP-UX operating systems Linux operating systems Mac OS X operating systems Oracle Solaris operating systems You cannot change the name of the client-system option file. It must be named dsm.sys.

You can use a text editor application to directly edit the client options file. You can also set options by using the backup-archive client GUI. In the GUI, select Edit > Preferences and use the Preferences Editor to set client options. Options that you set in the Preferences Editor are stored in the client options file. Not all client options can be set by using the Preferences Editor.

Restriction: For Mac OS X, the client-user options file and client-system options file must be plain text files, encoded as Unicode (UTF-8). By default, TextEdit does not save files as plain text. Select Format > Make Plain Text to save the files as plain text files. Select Unicode (UTF-8) in the Plain Text Encoding drop down list. Do not add the .txt extension when you save the file.

You can use the query options command to display all or part of your options and their current settings. This command accepts an argument to specify a subset of options. The default is to display all options.

Some options consist of only the option name, such as verbose and quiet. You can enter the entire option name, or its abbreviation. For example, you can specify the verbose option in either of the following ways:

verbose
ve

Follow these rules when you add options to your options files:

You can annotate option settings by adding comments to the options file. Begin each comment with an asterisk (*) as the first character on the line.
Do not specify options on a line that contains a comment.
You can optionally indent options with spaces or tabs, to make it easier to view the options and values that you specify in the file.

Enter each option on a separate line and enter all parameters for an option on the same line, as shown in the following examples:

domain /home /mfg /planning /mrkting /mgmt
domain / /Volumes/fs2 /Volumes/fs2 /Volumes/fs3 /Volumes/fs4

domain="c: d:"
domain="ALL-LOCAL -c: -systemstate"

To set an option in this file, enter the option name and one or more blank spaces, followed by the option value.
Enter one or more blank spaces between parameters.
The lengths of file and path names in the client options files cannot exceed the following limits:
- On AIX, Mac OS, HP-UX, and Solaris, the maximum length for a file name is 255 bytes. The maximum combined length of the file name and path name is 1024 characters. The Unicode representation of a character can occupy several bytes, so the maximum number of characters that a file name might contain can vary.
- On Linux, the maximum length for a file name is 255 bytes. The maximum combined length of the file name and path name is 4096 bytes. This matches the PATH_MAX that is supported by the operating system. The Unicode representation of a character can occupy several bytes, so the maximum number of characters that comprises a path and file name can vary. The limitation is the number of bytes in the path and file components, which might or might not correspond to an equal number of characters.
- On Windows, a file name cannot exceed 255 bytes. Directory names, including the directory delimiter, are also limited to 255 bytes. The maximum combined length for a file name and path name is 5192 bytes. The Unicode representation of a character can occupy several bytes, so the maximum number of characters that a file name might contain can vary.
  File path and file name limits are shown in Table 1.
- For archive or retrieve operations, the maximum length that you can specify for a path and file name, combined, is 1024 bytes.

Table 1. File path and name limits
MBCS encoding	Path name length limits	File name length limits
1	5192 bytes	255 bytes
2	4092 bytes	127 bytes
3	2728 bytes	85 bytes

In the table, MBCS encoding has these meanings:

Basic Latin: Standard US English characters, numbers, symbols, and control characters that are traditionally represented in 7-bit ASCII have a 1:1 ratio of bytes to characters.
Latin extensions: Latin characters that have tildes, grave or acute accents, and so on, as well as Greek, Coptic, Cyrillic, Armenian, Hebrew, and Arabic characters, typically have a 2:1 ratio of bytes to characters.
Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese: These characters and other East Asian language characters typically have a 3:1 ratio of bytes to characters.

Windows operating systems If you update the client options file while a session is active, you must restart the session to pick up the changes. If you use the client GUI setup wizard to make changes, the changes are effective immediately. If you are not using the client acceptor to manage the scheduler, you must also restart the scheduler.

Mac OS X operating systems AIX operating systems HP-UX operating systems Linux operating systems Oracle Solaris operating systems If you update the client-user options file while a session is active, you must restart the session to pick up the changes.