VMS backup

[Tony Cullen]

I would like to know the backup qualifier to list just the save sets on a tape.
Backup/list gives the save set contents and i just want to confirm the existence of the sets themselves.

[Ian Miller. · Accepted solution]

You can just use DIR if you moun the tape normally.
e.g

$ MOUNT MKA500: LABEL
$ DIR MKA500:*.*

[Tony Cullen]

Thanks Ian, I should have remembered.

I am doing a DR test and have a tape with image backups of our volumes.
I have in the past I have always used /sav when restoring from image. e.g.
backup/image/rew/sav mkb100:dsa0.bck/sav dke0:
This time I got a message %backup-iods2compat, output vol dkf0: structure ods-2 is not compatible with ovms vers prior to 7.2. The backup then aborted and only ctrl-c stopped the process.
My system is running 7.2-2.
I removed /sav from the command and still got the message but the backup did proceed. Is /sav not required after release 7.2?

[Ian Miller.]

/SAVE is default if device is a tape drive.

The message %backup-i-ods2compat

Tells you the volume backed up has a storage bitmap too big for Pre V7.2 systems to handle. As its a informational message then thats not the reason your backup then aborted.

[Martin P.J. Zinser]

Hello Tony,

as Ian pointed out the message you quoted should be harmless, see help/mess for a bit
wordier explanation.

Exactly what command did you try to execute and exactly which messages did you get?

Greetings, Martin

[Uwe Zessin]

Watch out!

A command like:
$ directory tape:*.*

can show your tape contents two more more times if your current default is a logical name search list. The reason is that the command did not give a directory specification and the system is pulling one from every entry of the search list. If I recall correctly, you can easily avoid this with:

$ directory tape:[]*.*

[Bojan Nemec]

And if you forgot the tape label you can mount with this command:

$ MOUNT/OVERRIDE=IDENTIFICATION MKA500:

Bojan

[Antoniov.]

Hi Tony,
you are restoring image backup, so target disk will be same structure of old source disk; I guess you restore operation try to change disk structure so I think you must confirm this choice.
You could type follow commands:
$ mount dke0: /fore
$ mount mkb100:/fore
$ backup/image/rew mkb100:dsa0.bck/sav dke0:/init

Apparently you don't need /init but you can try using it.

Antonio Vigliotti

[Uwe Zessin]

Antonio,
it looks to me he wants to find out the filenames on the tape - not restore any data.

But that reminds me about some other 'tricks?'. You can list all contents on a tape with:
$ backup /list=backup.lis tape:*.* /log

With the /LOG qualifier you get a message whenever BACKUP sees a new saveset on tape.

Once you have the list you can search it with:
$ search backup.lis "Save set:".


I think it will be much slower, because backup has to read and process all savesets and their contents, while a 'DIRECTORY' can have the ACP jump between tape marks.

[Antoniov.]

Uwe,
if you only will a file list you couldn't use /log qualifier because this option say what you have backuped (or restored) and need target device.
Backup/list is unique way to read source tape saveset without restore.

Antonio Vigliotti