Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 15:51:40 +0200 (CEST) From: Lukas Ertl <l.ertl@univie.ac.at> To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: ADSM/TSM on FreeBSD Message-ID: <20030505152830.K42559@pcle2.cc.univie.ac.at>
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Hi there, I'm not quite sure if -isp is the best list to post this to, so if anyone knows a better place, let me know. I'm currently investigating the status quo of ADSM/TSM backup systems on FreeBSD. For those of you who don't know, TSM stands for Tivoli Storage Management and is an IBM Backup/Restore "solution". <http://www-3.ibm.com/software/tivoli/products/storage-mgr/>; We are using this backup technique exclusively here at the University of Vienna, and most of our hosts are backing up to a TSM server with a big tape robot. The problem is that there is no native FreeBSD client for TSM. There are in fact various Linux clients that are supposed to work, but the gotcha is that since it runs under Linux emu, it only sees the "real" FreeBSD directories/filesystems that have no complement under /compat/linux (so if you're backing up /bin you get /compat/linux/bin, and for /usr you get /compat/linux/usr and so on). There are some hacks and workarounds for this (like NFS exporting you filesystems and doing local remounting or null mounting you filesystem hierarchy under an artificial mountpoint like /adsmhier), but all in all the linux TSM client is quite a PITA. Another possibility (and we are doing this now) is using an ancient SCO client that can be run under ibcs2 emu, but since this client is really old I'm afraid it will be incompatible with the server some day and since it seems to have problems under -current, I'm looking for a better solution. I contacted IBM regarding a native FreeBSD client (shouldn't be a real problem, and they are already offering clients for a sh*tload if OSs, see <ftp://service.boulder.ibm.com/storage/tivoli-storage-management/maintenanc= e/client/>), and this is what I got back: ---8<--- Lukas, there is currently not an IBM Tivoli Storage Manager client for FreeBSD or NetBSD. Likewise, it is not recommended to "make it work" using the available Linux emulation layer as well, since the TSM server may not be able to store information about this scenario properly. I will, however, forward your request to a marketing representative for consideration. Thank you for your feedback. ---8<--- And asked again if it would make sense to setup something like a petition (as we have done for NVidias video drivers), and I got this: ---8<--- Your request has been forwarded as a suggestion, Lukas. As such, it may not get an overt response from our marketing or development departments. But for the time being, unfortunately, FreeBSD is not supported. That does not mean your suggestion has not been heard, however. If you want to pursue this issue, I would recommend that you and other FreeBSD users get involved with some of the IBM Tivoli User Groups and keep up the suggestions. If there truly is a large FreeBSD community out there, a campaign to contact our sales staff with this request would also help make the point. ---8<--- So, this means to me that we should contact them and flood them with requests for a native FreeBSD TSM client. :-) Any comments? regards, le PS: As already said, if there's a better place to submit this, tell me. Is there an "official" contact in the FreeBSD project responsible for requests like this one? --=20 Lukas Ertl eMail: l.ertl@univie.ac.at UNIX-Systemadministrator Tel.: (+43 1) 4277-14073 Zentraler Informatikdienst (ZID) Fax.: (+43 1) 4277-9140 der Universit=E4t Wien http://mailbox.univie.ac.at/~le/
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