Tips on using RESTORE BACKUPSET client command line interface.

Answer

The following are some tips that will help with understanding how to run a RESTORE BACKUPSET from the Tivoli Storage Manager client command line interface:

1. When performing a RESTORE BACKUPSET from the client command line prompt (dsmc), the following messages will be displayed if the syntax for the filespacename and the sourcefilespac are not specified correctly:

ANS1247I Waiting for files from the server
ANS1302E No objects on server match query

After the client finishes and reports no objects found, the Tivoli Storage Manager Server will dismount the last volume in the backupset, but does not receive or report a message from the client indicating that the restore operation has terminated. When running a RESTORE BACKUPSET from the BA Client dsmc command prompt, the same session established by dsmc at start-up will be used to perform the backupset restore on the server, and will not terminate until the CommTimeOut parameter value is reached. When the CommTimeOut value is reached the server will terminate the session with the following message:

ANR0481W Session 8841 for node XXXXXXXX (WinNT)
terminated - client did not respond within 7200 seconds.
(SESSION: 8841)

This is working as designed, so the recommendation when running the RESTORE BACKUPSET command, is not to use the "dsmc" prompt. Instead use "dsmc restore backupset" from the OS prompt so that the session will terminate immediately after the restore attempt finishes.

2. When restoring a backupset for a large node the operation can take a very long time. If for example a single file is being restore from a large backupset located on tape the restore can take more than 12 hours to complete. During the restore there is no progress status being reported and the client may appear to be in a hung state. Check the session status on the server, and if the session is in the "run" state this means the backupset is working. In addition, if the backupset was written over multiple tape volumes the following message will be reported every few hours each time a new volume is mounted:

ANR1363I Input volume XXXXXXXL5 opened (sequence number 2)

3. After the restore backupset operation runs to completion, the following message is reported if no objects matching the request are found:

ANS1302E No objects on server match query

Verify that the object exists by running the server command QUERY BACKUPSETCONTENT, and search on the output for the object being restored. Use QUERY BACKUPSETCONTENT to make sure the spelling of the file space and path name are correct. The following is an example of how the QUERY BACKUPSETCONTENT output will look:

Node Name ----------------- WINDOWS07

Filespace Name -------------- \\windows- 07\u$

Client's Name for File ---------------------------------------------------------------- \DATA-WINDOWS07\JULY_DATA\TAXING OFFICE\ACCOUNTING\CORPORATION\OUTLOOK DATA\ACCOUNTS.PST

In this example the client's full path name for the file has spaces, but this is not obvious because Tivoli Storage Manager used the spaces in the path name as the delimiters to enter the next line. The name should look as follows:
"\DATA-WINDOWS07\JULY_DATA\TAXING OFFICE\ACCOUNTING\CORPORATION\OUTLOOK DATA\ACCOUNTS.PST"

There could also be more than one space between the words, and since a hyphen is not used to show where the name jumps to the next line there is no way to verify the space characters in the path name. When specifying a file name with spaces it should be enclosed with double quotes. The output from the QUERY BACKUPSETCONTENT can also be used to identify the file space name correctly as "\\windows07\u$".

Using this example, the correct syntax to restore the file ACCOUNTS.PST to an alternate location is as follows:

# dsmc restore backupset -subdir=yes -backupsetname=2015_3_10.111222333
"\\windows07\u$\DATA-WINDOWS07\JULY_DATA\TAXING OFFICE\ACCOUNTING \CORPORATION\OUTLOOK DATA\ACCOUNTS.PST" C:\temp_folder\

If this does not resolve the problem, contact IBM support for assistance.