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Back up Files or Directories

Recommendation

In general, it is recommended to schedule automatic backup jobs as described in the installation guide of your operating system. This guide explains how to back up data manually.

It is possible to manually run backups of individual directories or files. Your include/exclude list will be obeyed.

There are two ways to back up files or directories, using the graphical user interface (GUI) or the terminal.

Back up Using the GUI

The GUI is available on both Linux and Windows but is more commonly used on Windows.

To back up directories and files:

  1. Open the Backup-Archive GUI.
  2. Click on Backup.
  3. Select the directories and files you wish to back up.
    Windows only: If you desire a full system backup, make sure to include SystemState as well.
  4. Make sure to select Incremental (complete) on the dropdown menu.
  5. Click on the Backup button in the top-left corner to begin the backup process.

Back up Using the Terminal

Storage Protect's command line backup-archive client is called dsmc. This is the most common client used on Linux. But it is available on Windows as well.

dsmc needs administrative privileges, so run it as root (or Administrator on Windows).

On Linux: 

sudo -i
dsmc ...

On Windows (using the Administrative command prompt): 

cd "C:\Program Files\Tivoli\TSM\baclient"
dsmc ...

Other than that, the dsmc will work mostly the same way on both operating systems.

To perform an incremental backup, use the dsmc incremental subcommand: 

dsmc incremental -subdir=yes /home

Explanation

This will back up everything under the /home directory recursively. The -subdir=yes flag tells the client that it the backup process must be recursive. If this flag was omitted, only the /home directory (and nothing inside) would have been backed up, which wouldn't have been very helpful.

More information about how this subcommand works can be found here.