4. Configuration

TSM needs two configuration files:
  • dsm.sys
  • dsm.opt
Example versions of these files are installed in the installation directory /opt/tivoli/tsm/client/ba/bin/ and they are dsm.opt.example and dsm.sys.example.

In older versions there was an incl.excl where the include and exclude statements were placed.

4.1. Editing the dsm.sys file

VirtualMountPoint
The option VirtualMountPoint can be used to logically partition your filespaces, but more usefully can give basic backup and restore functionality on unsupported filesystems. For more details on the virtualmountpoint option take a look at our page on supported Linux and Unix file systems.

4.2. Editing the dsm.opt file

Domain
Amend the Domain line to list the local filesystems you wish to have backed up. This list should be space-separated and may be specified on multiple lines to additively list a number of filesystems, as below: 
Domain              /   /usr   /usr/local 
Domain              /data/01   /data/02
Please avoid backing up filesystems such as /tmp and /var/tmp which contain nothing of a permanent nature. Please also avoid backing up NFS-mounted filesystems; these should be backed up from their home machine. A symbolic link to a filesystem cannot be included in the Domain list.

4.3. Editing the include excludes

Traditionally include and exclude statements used to be placed in incl.excl. Now they are put into dsm.sys. Include and Exclude statements offer a finer discrimination than the Domain line in the dsm.opt file, limiting what is backed up from within filesystems. You should study the include and excludes within dsm.sys, consider your filestore usage, and amend the file to avoid backing up unnecessary files (for example, temporary files used by programs and utilities, virtual machine images, spool files, cached web pages and so forth). Backup performance can be greatly improved by not backing up unnecessary files.

If you have an old customized incl.excl file, these statements will have been merged into the dsm.sys file on an upgrade.

TSM processes the Exclude.fs then Exclude.dir before any of the Exclude file directives. Each group of directives is then processed working from the bottom to the top of the list. You can view the order of this processing by running: 

dsmc query inclexcl

To quit the session, issue quit at the prompt. For further help on includes/excludes see our page on how to exclude files and folders from backup.

4.4. Log file location

TSM also writes a number of log files, the locations of which are controlled by the variable DSM_LOG set in the wrapper shell scripts dsmc, dsmj, dsmcad in /usr/bin. By default these are set as below:

Log file Location Description
dsmerror.log $HOME Logs any errors when running manual backups
dsmsched.log /var/log Logs all transactions when running scheduled backups
dsmwebcl.log /var/log Logs the time of next scheduled backup
dsmerror.log /var/log Logs any errors when running scheduled backups

Note that the file dsmerror.log must be writeable by the user running the TSM Backup Client program.

4.5. Running the TSM client as a non-root user

By default non-root users are not able to use the TSM software to back up and restore their own files. Should you wish to enable this functionality, the setuid bit on the /opt/tivoli/tsm/client/ba/bin/dsmtca executable must be set by running the following command as the root user. Non-root users will then be able to backup and restore only their own files. To backup and restore all files, please run TSM as the root user. 

chmod 4555 /opt/tivoli/tsm/client/ba/bin/dsmtca

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