Frequently Asked Questions

If there are files with "umlauts" in the directories to be backed up, the configuration of the TSM client may require special preparation to ensure that all files are backed up without errors.

Only change the settings described here if you are asked to do so by the RRZ or if this is expressly required in the corresponding initial configuration!

First, you must ensure that the “locale” used for backup is available. To do this, type the command

locale -a |grep en_US

At least the entries “en_US.iso885915” and “en_US.utf8” should now be listed. If this is not the case, please execute the commands

locale-gen en_US.ISO-8859-15
locale-gen en_US.UTF-8

If you are not logged in as root, precede the command with sudo in Debian or Ubuntu. In SUSE Linux, please use yast (System => Language).

Then, before starting the TSM client (whether GUI or the command line tool dsmc) or before starting the scheduler, you must always execute the following commands at the command line:

unset LC_ALL
export LANG=en_US.ISO-8859-15
export LC_CTYPE=en_US.ISO-8859-15

During the first few days of backup, please check whether there are still problems with the encoding of file names on your system. To do this, take a closer look at the contents of the dsmerror.log file (usually located in the /var/log/ directory on Linux). The error messages have the following format

ANS4042E Object name '/your/path/to/file/l\ufffdwe.jpg' contains one or more unrecognised characters and is not valid.

If these errors continue to occur despite the configuration shown above, please try the entries

unset LC_ALL
export LANG=POSIX
export LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8

Under SLES in the 64-bit version, you should also use the command

rpm -qa | grep glibc

to check whether the ‘glibc-locale-32bit’ package is installed. If this is not the case, please install it with yast, then restart the TSM scheduler and check whether the error still occurs.

If error messages of this type (either in the log file mentioned or in the daily email informing you of backup problems) occur for the first time after updating the client software and your system is based on systemd as the init system (virtually all current Linux distributions), please proceed as follows:

Add to the beginning of the file

/opt/tivoli/tsm/client/ba/bin/dsmcad.service 

this lines:

Environment="LANG=en_US"
Environment="LC_ALL=en_US"

After that please restart the TSM schedule service:

systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl restart dsmcad.service

Due to the way TSM backs up files and selects how they are backed up (see TSM client documentation), it is not possible to restore changed POSIX permissions (user/group/other or owner/group ID) to a state prior to the last backup run! Only the file contents can be restored accordingly; the POSIX permissions remain at the “current” and thus possibly undesirable level. Extended attributes and ACLs are expressly not affected by this functional restriction.

The TSM node password is automatically changed every 1-7 days. Therefore, it is usually not necessary to change the password manually. If it is necessary in your case, please proceed as follows.

The new password must contain at least 6 and no more than 63 characters, should not appear in any dictionary, and should not be easily derived from such words (‘hamburg1’ is a similarly poor password as ‘hamburg’). Upper and lower case letters are not relevant. Valid characters are: a-z, 0-9, +, . (period), _, -, & .

You can change the password either on the graphical user interface under Utilities => Change Password. To do this, you will need your current password. Alternatively, you can also do this on the command line:

dsmc set password

You will then be asked to enter the new password interactively.

To use the TSM client, a user does not necessarily need to have local administrator rights; the following special rights or group memberships are sufficient:

• Member of the Backup Operators group.
• Privilege Manage auditing and security log.
• Owner of the file or directory to be backed up or restored.

Only directories can be included or excluded from the backup using include/exclude lists.

To do this, start the TSM GUI and select Edit => Preferences => Include/Exclude from the menu.

Setting/selecting the appropriate filters for directories is neither trivial nor very intuitive. You should only make changes there if you are really sure what exactly you are doing. If necessary, please refer to the ISP client manual or ask the backup team for assistance.

If you explicitly want to back up only a subdirectory tree of a file system that is not located on its own (physical) file system, you must enter the following two lines in dsm.sys:

*********************************************************************
VIRTUALMOUNTPOINT  /home/user1
DOmain             /home/user1
*********************************************************************

Error description

Only affects Ubuntu

Only occurs when backing up via the Scheduler Service; manual backups are error-free.

Example error message:

2022-05-12 15:23:56 ANS1228E Sending of object ‘/var/www/vhosts/formularetesten.blogs.uni-hamburg.de/Datenträger-Gebühr-einbuchen-300x188.png’ failed.

2022-05-12 15:23:56 ANS4042E Object name ‘/var/www/vhosts/formularetesten.blogs.uni-hamburg.de/Datenträger-Gebühr-einbuchen-300x188.png’ contains one or more unrecognized characters and is not valid.

Solution

In both files:

/etc/systemd/system/dsmcad.service

/opt/tivoli/tsm/client/ba/bin/dsmcad.service

Set the following parameters:

Environment="LANG=en_US.UTF-8"

Environment="LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8"

Restart scheduling services: sudo service dsmcad restart

In certain cases, you will need to restart the ISP scheduler, e.g. if you have changed the client configuration file. The procedure varies depending on the operating system, but you will need administrator or root privileges for everything:

Windows

Open the Services Manager via Control Panel => Administrative Tools => Services and locate the entry TSM Client Acceptor. Right-click on this entry and select Restart.

Linux / Ubuntu

Stop and start the TSM scheduler using the usual systemctl scripts, i.e.

systemctl restart dsmcad.service

Newer versions of the ISP client can simply be installed over the old version. The configuration files will be retained in any case, and the stored TSM node password will usually be retained as well. In rare cases, you may need to re-enter the TSM node password. If this is necessary, please contact the RRZ.

Further documentation on the ISP client can be found at IBM:

• Online Documentation
• PDF Documentation