Just wondering: there are a couple of instances within the university where a system has large filesystems with a large number of small files. (eg: our mail spools have a single file for each email message ...) This is, obviously, a worst-case scenario for both backups and restores. I notice in the documentation for the 5.1 TSM client that snapshots are supported on Linux-x86, with the Linux Logical Volume Manager; unfortunately, these systems are running Solaris, not Linux.
In short: fssnap creates a new device entry, which it prints to stdout, named /dev/fssnap/N (N being a number) for the block device (raw device is /dev/rfssnap/N). Reads from this device are redirected to a combination of the original filesystem and a backing store (which is where the old data is captured before being overwritten; it is defined during the execution of fssnap). Backups should then proceed from this device image, rather than the original volume. I'm guessing that this image is a consistent filesystem based at the time of the fssnap command (even if not, it would be preferable to backing up a raw, mounted, filesystem.). The ideal solution would be to use TSM's image backup facility in conjunction with fssnap. If this is not possible, an alternative would be to forcibly backup that device (with all the headaches that likely would then ensue should the device name change between invocations of fssnap). I'm not sure at this stage whether we would be using image backups in conjunction with standard incrementals, but I suspect that we will in most cases; there's at least one case where this will not be useful, though. So the questions: * Does anybody have any experience with this type of backup, and have any suggestions regarding pitfalls, etc.? * Is there any likelihood of TSM supporting fssnap for image backups in the near future? * Any general advice from those who haven't dealt with this specific scenario before, but who do have some idea of the problems we're likely to encounter with image backups? * Comments relating to the possibility that the raw device fssnap provides may differ from invocation to invocation? * Suggestions for alternative backup methods? We're also looking at using the FastT900's snapshot capability, which I imagine would have similar problems in large to using fssnap. Many thanks for any and all tips and pointers. A quick Google doesn't bring up much, and none of it seems to be useful. :(