PowerScale OneFS Web Administration Guide

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NDMP environment variables

You can specify default settings of NDMP backup and recovery operations through NDMP environment variables. You can also specify NDMP environment variables through your data management application (DMA).

Symantec NetBackup and NetWorker are the only two DMAs that allow you to directly set environment variables and propagate them to OneFS.

Table 1. NDMP environment variables
Environment variable	Valid values	Default	Description
BACKUP_FILE_LIST	`<file-path>`	None	Triggers a file list backup. Currently, only Networker and Symantec NetBackup can pass environment variables to OneFS.
BACKUP_MODE	TIMESTAMP SNAPSHOT	TIMESTAMP	Enables or disables snapshot-based incremental backups. To enable snapshot-based incremental backups, specify SNAPSHOT.
BACKUP_OPTIONS	0x00000400 0x00000200 0x00000100 0x00000001 0x00000002 0x00000004	0	This environment variable controls the behavior of the backup operations. The following settings are applicable only to datasets containing the CloudPools-driven SmartLink files: 0x00000400 Backs up SmartLink files with full data. This is the combo copy backup option. 0x00000200 Backs up all the cache data. This is the shallow copy backup option. 0x00000100 Reads SmartLink file data from the cloud and backs up the SmartLink files as regular files. This is the deep copy option. 0x00000001 Always adds DUMP_DATE into the list of environment variables at the end of a backup operation. The DUMP_DATE value is the time when the backup snapshot was taken. A DMA can use the DUMP_DATE value to set BASE_DATE for the next backup operation. 0x00000002 Retains the backup snapshot of a token-based backup in the dumpdates file. Since a token-based backup has no LEVEL, its level is set to 10 by default. The snapshot allows a faster-incremental backup as the next incremental backup after the token-based backup is done. 0x00000004 Retains the previous snapshot. After a faster-incremental backup, the prior snapshot is saved at level 10. In order to avoid two snapshots at the same level, the prior snapshot is kept at a lower level in the dumpdates file. This allows the BASE_DATE and BACKUP_MODE=snapshot settings to trigger a faster-incremental backup instead of a token-based backup. The environment variable settings prompt the NDMP server to compare the BASE_DATE value against the timestamp in the dumpdates file to find the prior backup. Even though the DMA fails the latest faster-incremental backup, OneFS retains the prior snapshot. The DMA can then retry the faster-incremental backup in the next backup cycle using the BASE_DATE value of the prior backup.
DIRECT	Y N	N	Enables or disables Direct Access Restore (DAR) and Directory DAR (DDAR). The following values are valid: Y Enables DAR and DDAR. N Disables DAR and DDAR.
EXCLUDE	`<file-matching-pattern>`	None	If you specify this option, OneFS does not back up files and directories that meet the specified pattern. Separate multiple patterns with a space.
FILES	`<file-matching-pattern>`	None	If you specify this option, OneFS backs up only files and directories that meet the specified pattern. Separate multiple patterns with a space. NOTE As a rule, files are matched first and then the EXCLUDE pattern is applied.
HIST	`<file-history-format>`	Y	Specifies the file history format. The following values are valid: D Specifies directory or node file history. F Specifies path-based file history. Y Specifies the default file history format determined by your NDMP backup settings. N Disables file history.
LEVEL	`<integer>`	0	Specifies the level of NDMP backup to perform. The following values are valid: 0 Performs a full NDMP backup. 1 - 9 Performs an incremental backup at the specified level. 10 Performs Incremental Forever backups.
MSB_RETENTION_PERIOD	Integer	300 sec	For a multi-stream backup session, specifies the backup context retention period.
MSR_RETENTION_PERIOD	0 through 606024	600 sec	For a multi-stream restore session, specifies the recovery context retention period within which a recovery session can be retried.
RECURSIVE	Y N	Y	For restore sessions only. Specifies that the restore session should recover files or sub-directories under a directory automatically.
RESTORE_BIRTHTIME	Y N	N	Specifies whether to recover the birth time for a recovery session.
RESTORE_HARDLINK _BY_TABLE	Y N	N	For a single-threaded restore session, determines whether OneFS recovers hard links by building a hard-link table during recovery operations. Specify this option if hard links are incorrectly backed up and recovery operations are failing. If a recovery operation fails because hard links were incorrectly backed up, the following message appears in the NDMP backup logs: Bad hardlink path for <path> NOTE This variable is not effective for a parallel restore operation.
RESTORE_OPTIONS	0x00000001 0x00000002 0x00000004 0x00000100 0x00000200	0	This environment variable controls the behavior of the restore operations. 0x00000001 Performs a single-threaded restore operation. 0x00000002 Restores attributes to the existing directories. 0x00000004 Creates intermediate directories with default attributes. The default behavior is to get attributes from the first object under a given directory. The following settings are applicable only to datasets backed up with the combo copy backup option: 0x00000100 Forces deep copy restoration of the SmartLink files. That is, restores the backed up SmartLink file as a regular file on the target cluster. 0x00000200 Forces shallow copy restoration of the SmartLink files. That is, restores the backed up SmartLink file as a SmartLink file on the target cluster.
UPDATE	Y N	Y	Determines whether OneFS updates the dumpdates file. The default is to perform a combo copy restore. Y OneFS updates the dumpdates file. N OneFS does not update the dumpdates file.