openvms 7.3-1 backups

[Adam Strobel]

I'm new to OpenVMS, may backups do now run on Sunday’s so I need to make sure the weekly backup file is not commented out. In UNIX I just edit the crontab and make sure everything is in order, does anyone know what the equivalent to the crontab is in OpenVMS?

Thanks,

[Volker Halle · Accepted solution]

Adam,

on OpenVMS there is the Queue Manager and BATCH queues to run specific DCL command procedures at specified times 'in the background':

You can look at the scheduled batch jobs with:

$ SHOW QUEUE/BA/ALL

Volker.

[Adam Strobel]

Thanks Volker.

Last question for you, How would one edit these batch jobs?

thanks,

[Volker Halle]

Adam,

you submit a DCL procedure (.COM file) as a batch job with

$ SUBMIT file.com /QUE=que-name/after=time/LOG

Once the job has been submitted into the queue manager, you CANNOT modify the contents of the file.COM you've submitted. You can only edit the file (which would create a new version of the file.COM file), delete the old version from the queue ($ DELETE/ENTRY=entry-number) and re-submit the new version of the file.

Explanation: the OpenVMS Queue Manager stores the file-id of the file and not the file name.

You can change some of the parameters of an existing batch job with $ SET ENTRY number/AFTER=... etc.

Volker.

[comarow]

You would need to edit the backup file itself.
As far as when it runs, unless you have a scheduling program, there is probably a submit command that needs to be edited.

Usually it is better to have a seperate incremental file sumbitted every day but once, and an full image submitted weekly.

Any questions feel free to ask.
in other words, submit a full image backup weekly,

Backup/image/ignore=interlock weekly,
than daily
Backup/sinc=backup

If you ever need to restore,
first you restore the image backup,
than do the incrementals in reverse order.

Bob

[Richard W Hunt]

As of OpenVMS 7.2-1, and I think this is true of 7.3-2, there is no "true" equivalent to a CRON.

So we rolled our own. There are two ways to approach this.

The SIMPLE method is to put a little DCL segment in your job to see if ANOTHER version of the same job is in the queue for a given data. There is lexical for getting queue data that helps here. Make each job self-propagating. You might have an issue with what happens if you cross a reboot time and the job fails because of it.

The trickier method involves writing something that wakes up every so often, reads a data file with some schedule data in it and the name of a file to be run based on the schedule data. This works pretty well including the fact that on Alpha, you can set up the time to just about any frequency you want, as quickly as every 5 or 10 minutes - but we use 15 just because that works for us.

Make the control program detached and start it on reboots. BUT the control program has to decide when it is time to run anything. There is where you put the bells and whistles. In our case, the program in question can read files with frequencies of submission ranging from every 15 minutes to once per year at a specific time and date, precise to the quarter-hour.

The SIMPLE approach is better when you don't have literally dozens of jobs that need to be run on specific schedules. When you really need a CRON, you need to build your control program and let it run your scheduled tasks for you.

[Lawrence Czlapinski]

Adam, we run a DCL, AUTOSUBMIT_BACKUP.COM, which we created, from DAILY_MGR.COM. The AUTOSUBMIT_BACKUP.COM run a DCL which checks for holidays and weekend (Sat. and Sun.) to decide whether a backup should be submitted today. We use separate BACKUP_TAPE_QUEUE_n.
Lawrence

[Benjamin Levy]

There is also a 3rd-party product from ICAM called JSS which does a good job of handling this kind of thing.

[Adam Strobel]

thanks everyone!!

--Adam

[Jan van den Ende]

Adam,

From your Forum Profile:


I have assigned points to 0 of 20 responses to my questions.


Maybe you can find some time to do some assigning?

Mind, I do NOT say you necessarily need to give lots of points. It is fully up to _YOU_ to decide how many. If you consider an answer is not deserving any points, you can also assign 0 ( = zero ) points, and then that answer will no longer be counted as unassigned.
Consider, that every poster took at least the trouble of posting for you!

To easily find your streams with unassigned points, click your own name somewhere.
This will bring up your profile.
Near the bottom of that page, under the caption â My Question(s)â you will find â questions or topics with unassigned points â Clicking that will give all, and only, your questions that still have unassigned postings.

Thanks on behalf of your Forum colleagues.

PS. â nothing personal in this. I try to post it to everyone with this kind of assignment ratio in this forum. If you have received a posting like this before â please do not take offence â none is intended!

Proost.

Have one on me.

Jan