Hosts and paths

Hosts and Paths

The front-end host can be defined with either the name or IP address. A path is a text string that starts with a slash (/) and specifies a path and a file name or just a path to a folder. When you are specifying a path to a folder, you must end the text string with a (/) slash. The section describes how the text string in the Host and Path fields breaks down into its various components, how to escape special characters in the text string, and how to indicate system folders in the path.

Note: The examples are Linux-based path syntax unless otherwise specified.

Hosts

In the following example, the threshold definition specifies the host that was indexed in the backupset. The host can be entered in the Host field as:

exch1.example.com

The host can be entered as exch1.example.com or the IP address of the host, such as 192.168.192.192. If you configured your backup software to use the IP address of a host, use the IP address. If you configured your backup software to use the hostname, use the hostname.

Note: Some backup software or indexing methods do not use the IP address or hostname. If you are using Avamar, you need to use the Avamar Client ID as the host. For virtual machine backups, the hostname can be a virtual machine name that is given by the virtual machine host and can be different from the virtual machine DNS name. In other cases, the hostname can be the IBM® Storage Defender Sentinel policy name.

Path to a folder

The following example is a Linux-based path to a folder:

/Documents/BobSmith/marketing/Jan2024/

Path to a file

Specifying a path to a file is done by ending the path text string with the file name and extension. The following example is a Linux-based path to a file:

/Dave_Smith/Documents/file01.txt

The Path string can be broken down into the following components:

Table 1. Components of a file path
Component	Description
`Dave_Smith/`	A folder name.
`Documents/`	A folder name under the `Dave_Smith` folder
`file01.txt`	The file name that you want to monitor for any activity.

Path to a Windows drive

When accessing a specific drive on a Windows system, in the Path field, use the following syntax followed by the remaining path:

/<drive_letter>:/

Where is the specific drive on the Windows system. An example of specifying the Windows drive letter and a path is:

/C:/Users/JSmith

Note: Some backup software or indexing methods do not use the drive letter designation. For VM backups, the drive letter can be replaced by a drive UUID and a partition or file system UUID.

Escaping special characters in the path

File and folder names can contain special characters but these characters must be handled correctly for the path to be interpreted properly. When a special character is in a folder name, use the pipe (|) character before it. For example, a folder is named Sales/Marketing. If the slash (/) is not escaped by adding the pipe (|) in front of it, the folder is seen as a Sales folder that contains a subfolder that is named Marketing.

To interpret Sales/Marketing as the name of a folder, enter the folder name in the Path field as:

Sales|/Marketing

The folder is now interpreted as a single folder named Sales/Marketing.

Table 2. Escaping special characters
Field	Special characters
Host	/ \ \| :
Path	/ \ \|

Specifying a system folder in the path

Specifying a path to a system folder is handled differently than other folder types. The system folder is indicated by the pipe (|) and then (S). The character combination is interpreted as a system folder, such as:

/RMAN:|S/18/XE

The Path string is broken down into the following components:

Table 3. System folder path
Component	Description
`RMAN:\|S/`	A system folder name for an Oracle database, which is indicated by the (`\|S`) terminator.
`18`	A folder under the system folder.
`XE`	A folder under the `18` folder.

Specifying a path in a VMFS datastore snapshots

Some backup agents, such as NBU and IBM Storage Protect, create disk image backups of a virtual machine (VMDK) instead of at the file level. With these types of VMDK backups, IBM Storage Defender Sentinel extracts the file information, but not the complete path name of the file locations. This information indicates the disk and partition information where the file is stored on. To specify a path for a VMDK, use the disk UUID, the partition UUID, and the specific path to specify the VMDK and path in the Path field:

/By Device|S/<disk_uuid>/<partition_uuid>/<path_to_files>/<file_name>

You can specify either a path to a folder or a specific file name. Contact your system administrator to obtain the disk and partition UUIDs. For example, the file /bin/file01.txt on the host examplehost.com is listed in a IBM Storage Protect VM disk backup and indexed by IBM Storage Defender Sentinel. The disk has a UUID of 6000C29f-aa7a-0d31-ec39-f702758 and the partition that the file is located in has a UUID of 7EB48F74B4DF2D81. To specify the path correctly, type:

/By Device|S/6000C29f-aa7a-0d31-ec39-f702758/7EB48F74B4DF2D81/bin/file01.txt

If you want to define the threshold at the host level, specify the host in the Host field and type / in the Path field to monitor all the folders and files on the host.

Specifying a location

You can specify a location of a file name of an attachment. The following example describes the text string in the Location field where you need to specify a service root and the file name of an attachment.

exch1.example.com:exchange/DSmith/Recoverable Items|S/08294367ac73b35f| >documents.zip|:1|>My Documents/

The path can be broken down to the following components and component separators as shown in the following table.

Table 4. Specifying a location
Component	Description
`exch1.example.com`	The hostname. Every path begins with the hostname and ends with a colon (`:`) or forward slash (`/`).
`exchange`	The service root. If the hostname is terminated by a colon (`:`), then the next path component is the name of an application service hosting the data. If the hostname is terminated by a slash (`/`), then the rest of the path indicates files in the file system of that server.
`DSmith`	A folder name. In this case, it represents an Exchange mailbox.
`Recoverable Items`	A folder name. The `\|S` terminator indicates that this folder is a hidden system folder. In this case, it is a folder managed by Exchange and is in a distinct name space from other folders `Dave Smith` may have created in his mailbox. It is not visible to the user.
`08294367ac73b35f`	The filename of an Exchange email message. If this path component is terminated with `\|>` , then it is a file name, as in this case. If it is terminated by a forward slash `/`, then it is a folder name.
`documents.zip`	The filename of the attachment. This example has a suffix of `\|:1` which is the attachment disambiguation number. In this case, it indicates that this is the second attachment with the name documents.zip. The two files may contain different content, but happen to have the same filename.The `\|>` terminator indicates that it is a filename, not a folder.
`My Documents`	A folder name, which, in this case, is contained inside `documents.zip`.

Specifying a location on a Windows drive

The following example describes a text string that specifies a location on a Windows drive:

exch1.example.com/C:\exchange\First Storage Group\Mailbox Store\priv1.edb|>Dave Smith/Sales|/Marketing/

The path can be broken down to the following components and component separators as shown in the following table.

Table 5. Specifying a location on a Windows drive
Component	Description
`exch1.example .com`	The hostname. This example ends with a slash.
`C:`	The name of the drive.
`exchange`	A folder name under `C:` drive.
`First Storage Group`	A folder name under the `exchange` folder.
`Mailbox Store`	A folder name under the `First Storage Group` folder.
`priv1.edb`	The file name. The path component terminator `\|>` indicates that it is a file name.
`Dave Smith`	A folder name, which is a mailbox in this case.
`Sales/Marketing`	A folder name under `Dave Smith`. The folder has a slash in its name and that is escaped by the pipe `\|` and followed by a slash `/`.