Appendix F. Third-Party Backup Package Configuration

The following third-party backup packages are known to be DMF-aware:

LEGATO NetWorker

A DMF-aware Application Specific Module (ASM) called dmfasm is available as a patch against NetWorker 7.1.2 for IRIX.

To use NetWorker to back up DMF-managed filesystems, add each filesystem to the NetWorker client's save set list and enable dmfasm on each filesystem.

You can enable the dmfasm module by creating a file named .nsr in the root directory of each DMF-managed filesystem. The contents of this file should be the following, which specifies that dmfasm should be used on all files and subdirectories:

+dmfasm: .


Note: As of NetWorker 7.1.2, the nwbackup and nwrecover commands do not include dmfasm, and therefore backups and recovers performed with those commands will not be DMF-aware. Only the save, savepnpc , and recover commands use dmfasm .

An alternative method for enabling dmfasm on DMF-managed filesystems is to create a directive resource using nwadmin. For example, with two DMF filesystems /dmfusr1 and /dmfusr2, the directive resource would contain the following:

<< /dmfusr1 >> +dmfasm: .
<< /dmfusr2 >> +dmfasm: .

After creating the directive, you must update the NetWorker client's Directive field to use the new directive.

See the NetWorker documentation for more information about ASMs, .nsr files, and directives.

To use DMF's do_predump.sh script with NetWorker, set up the NetWorker client to use a precommand as follows:

  1. Set the client's Backup command field to savepnpc.

  2. Create a file named /nsr/res/ grpname.res, where grpname is the NetWorker group to which the client belongs. The file should contain the following:

    type: savepnpc;
    precmd: "/usr/lib/dmf/do_predump.sh daemon dump_tasks";

    where:

    • daemon is the name of the dmdaemon object in the DMF configuration file

    • dump_tasks is the name of the task group specifying parameters related to backups


Note: DMF's DUMP_RETENTION parameter should match the value of the NetWorker client's Retention Policy parameter.

For more information about Networker, see www.legato.com and the Networker manuals.

Atempo Time Navigator

Atempo's Time Navigator is high-performance backup and recovery software designed with intuitive graphical user interfaces (GUIs) to manage data in heterogeneous environments.

Time Navigator is DMF-aware and supports a broad range of servers and client operating systems including SGI IRIX and 64-bit Linux running on Intel Itanium 2 processors. It also supports a wide range of SAN hardware and tape libraries. Time Navigator by default uses Atempo's proprietary Time Navigator protocol for all data transfers.

To make Time Navigator aware of a DMF filesystem, add a line resembling the following to the full-Time-Navigator-installation-path /Conf/parameters file, where /dmfusr is the DMF user filesystem:

parameter:bapi_fs=/dmfusr

You can specify more DMF filesystems by adding a similar line for each DMF filesystem.

Using the Time Navigator GUI, you can define backup classes to select which directories you want to back up. You can also vary the granularity for backup and restore, such as file, directory, or class level.

Because Time Navigator is DMF-aware, you can also use NDMP to back up and restore data on DMF filesystems.

To use DMF's do_predump.sh script with Time Navigator, set up Time Navigator to use a precommand as follows:

  • In the Advanced settings of the backup strategy, specify the following as the preprocessing command:

    /usr/lib/dmf/do_predump.sh daemon dump_tasks

    where:

    daemon

    Name of the dmdaemon object in the DMF configuration file

    dump_tasks

    Name of the task group specifying the parameters related to backups

  • Ensure that DMF's DUMP_RETENTION parameter matches the retention value of the cartridge pool associated with backing up the DMF filesystem.

For more information about Time Navigator, see www.atempo.com and the Time Navigator manuals.

Time Navigator for NDMP

Time Navigator supports Network Data Management Protocol (NDMP), which is an open network protocol built around client/server technology. NDMP provides a single interface for controlling backup, recovery, and other data transfers between primary and secondary storage devices in a variety of heterogeneous environments.

NDMP consists of two services allowing hardware and software to communicate regardless of their own characteristics:

  • The Data Server reads data from disk and generates an NDMP data stream or reads the NDMP data stream and restores it back to disk.

  • The Tape Server reads an NDMP data stream and writes it to tape or reads from tape and creates an NDMP data stream.

NDMP allows for library and drive management and enables efficient use of network resources. It also addresses a major problem with network-attached storage (NAS) devices, which usually cannot host backup software because most of them do not run general purpose operating systems and cannot run applications. With Time Navigator, all that is required is an NDMP data server on the NAS system.

Backup using Time Navigator for NDMP is based on the NDMP three-way architecture:

  • Time Navigator NDMP Data Server: installed on the host on which the data to be backed up resides.

  • Time Navigator NDMP Tape Server: installed on the host that controls data transfer and is connected to a tape device.

  • Time Navigator Client application for NDMP: coordinates the Data Server and Tape Server using NDMP. The filesystem or directory to be backed up must be visible to the Time Navigator Client application. If the data to be backed up resides on a different host, you must NFS-mount the required filesystems on this system in order to be able to browse and create the backup class.

Figure F-1 describes the NDMP three-way architecture.

Figure F-1. NDMP Three-way Architecture

NDMP Three-way Architecture

Time Navigator bundles the Data Server and the Tape Server in one service called NDMP Server, which is installed on both the host acting as the Data Server and the host acting as the Tape Server.

For more information on NDMP, visit www.ndmp.org . For other configurations possible with Time Navigator for NDMP, see the Time Navigator manuals.