Controlling symbolic link and alias processing

The backup-archive client treats symbolic links and aliases (aliases apply to Mac OS X only) as actual files and backs them up. However, the file referenced by the symbolic link is not backed up. In some cases symbolic links can be easily recreated and need not be backed up.

In addition, backing up these symbolic links can increase backup processing time and occupy a substantial amount of space on the Tivoli® Storage Manager server. You can use the exclude.attribute.symlink option to exclude a file or a group of files that are symbolic links from backup processing. If necessary, you can use the include.attribute.symlink option to include symbolic links within broad group of excluded files for backup processing.

For example, to exclude all symbolic links from backup processing, except those that exist under the /home/spike directory, enter these statements in your dsm.sys file:

  exclude.attribute.symlink  /.../*
  include.attribute.symlink /home/spike/.../*