PowerScale OneFS 9.8.0.0 Backup and Recovery Guide

Managing file list backups

If your data management application (DMA) can pass environment variables to OneFS, you can control backups by specifying a file list.

When you specify a file list backup, only the listed files in a directory that are in a sorted order are backed up.

A backup level other than 0 triggers an incremental file list backup. In an incremental file list backup, only the listed files that were created or changed in the source directory since the last incremental backup of the same level are backed up.

To configure a file list backup, you must complete the following tasks:

• Create the file list in a sorted order and place it in OneFS.
• Specify the path of the source directory.
• Specify the file list location.

The file list is an ASCII text file that lists the pathnames of files to be backed up. The pathnames must be relative to the path specified in the FILESYSTEM environment variable. Absolute file paths in the file list are not supported. The pathnames of all files must be included, or they are not backed up.

To specify the full path of the source directory to be backed up, you must specify the FILESYSTEM environment variable in your DMA. For example:

FILESYSTEM=/ifs/data/projects

To specify the pathname of the file list, you must specify the environment variable, BACKUP_FILE_LIST in your DMA. The file list must be accessible from the node performing the backup. For example:

BACKUP_FILE_LIST=/ifs/data/proj_list.txt