Question & Answer
Question
Is there any way to make an inactive backup object active?
Cause
Tivoli Storage Manager/IBM Spectrum Protect incremental backup processing will send a new copy of a client object to the server if that object has changed since the last time a backup occurred. The last copy of a backup object sent to a Tivoli Storage Manager/IBM Spectrum Protect server is the active copy. Based upon copy group retention settings for the management class that the object belongs to, prior copies of this same file may be retained. These are known as inactive copies of the object (see the Tivoli Storage Manager/IBM Spectrum Protect Admin Reference or Info Center for retention option details under copy group and management class discussions).
Sometimes it may be necessary to make a prior backup, that is inactive, the active copy.
Answer
An inactive object can be changed to an active object by deleting the current active object and all other inactive objects ahead of it. This deletion must be done through the Tivoli Storage Manager/IBM Spectrum Protect Backup/Archive client using the DELETE BACKUP command. Prior to this command working for a given Tivoli Storage Manager/IBM Spectrum Protect client the Tivoli Storage Manager/IBM Spectrum Protect administrator must have either defined the node to allow backup deletions or updated the client node definition (the default is no):
update node <node name> backdel=yes
Once the node is enabled for backup deletion use the Backup/Archive command line to delete the current active object of the file in question:
delete backup <file specification>
The following example show the deletion of the current active backup object for dsm.opt to make the prior inactive copy become active:
tsm> q backup dsm.opt -ina
Size Backup Date Mgmt Class A/I File
------- -------------------- ----------------- --- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1,133 B 06/10/2013 11:47:48 DEFAULT A \\toddo\c$\Program Files\Tivoli\TSM\baclient\dsm.opt
1,133 B 06/06/2013 09:50:34 DEFAULT I \\toddo\c$\Program Files\Tivoli\TSM\baclient\dsm.opt
tsm> delete backup dsm.opt
Backup files will be deleted. Do you wish to proceed? (Yes (Y)/No (N)) yes
The only valid responses are characters from this set: [Y, N]
The character '#' stands for any decimal integer.Y
Backup Delete-> 1,133 \\toddo\c$\Program Files\Tivoli\TSM\baclient\dsm.opt [Sent]
Total number of objects deleted: 1
Total number of objects failed: 0
Total number of bytes transferred: 0 B
Data transfer time: 0.00 sec
Network data transfer rate: 0.00 KB/sec
Aggregate data transfer rate: 0.00 KB/sec
Objects compressed by: 0%
Elapsed processing time: 00:00:14
tsm> q backup dsm.opt
Size Backup Date Mgmt Class A/I File
------- -------------------- ----------------- --- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1,133 B 06/06/2013 09:50:34 DEFAULT A \\toddo\c$\Program Files\Tivoli\TSM\baclient\dsm.opt
This process can also be used to create an active copy of an object that only has inactive copies on the server. In other words, if for some reason a client's copy of an object was deleted and an incremental was run which deactivated the active copy of the object on the Tivoli Storage Manager/IBM Spectrum Protect server, this process can be used to change the most current inactive object back to active. To do this, a new active copy of the file by the same name would need to be backed up to the server. This can just be a dummy file as it will subsequently be deleted. After the backup of this dummy object (with the same filename) is complete, it will be the active copy on the server. Running a delete backup against it will then remove this active/dummy object and make the prior inactive backup version (the real copy of the object) active.
Product Synonym
TSM
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Document Information
Modified date:
17 June 2018
UID
swg21642360