Thursday, April 8, 2010

TSM Backup Check

Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) is IBM's backup software that we use where I work. Its a great piece of software, but it's a bit lacking in the notifications area. To put it simply, it does not tell the user what's happening.

For obvious reasons this can lead to confusion and lost backups when errors do occur. TSM does log whats happening and we can use those logs to our benefit. Introduction the solution; TSM Backup Check.app. A simple shell script that will parse the dsmsched.log for successful backups and errors. This app is not well tested, so use with caution.

UPDATE:
Scripts are hosted on GitHub: https://github.com/rustymyers/TSM-Backup-Check

Here is the installer for the app:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/rzm102/TSM%20Backup%20Check.dmg

Here is the source for the app:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/rzm102/TSM%20Backup%20Check%20Source.zip

The TSM Backup Check package installs the "TSM Backup Check.app" and "Set TSM Backup Check Run Time.app" in to the "TSM Backup Check folder" in Applications. There is a postflight script that sets Growl to start at login.

The TSM Backup Check.app requires Growl to be installed and turned on. I used Growl 1.2 from here: http://growl.cachefly.net/Growl-1.2.dmg
The TSM Backup Check.app creates a log file in ~/Library/Logs/TSMChk.log and appends to it after each run. The script will search the dsmsched.log for your last successful backup. If it's older than 10 days, it does some error checking and reports what fails. The successful backup date is then displayed with growl.

The Set TSM Backup Check Run Time.app uses applescript to ask you for the time you want the launchd item to run the TSM Backup Check.app. The launchd item tries to launch it from the /Applications/TSM Backup Check/ folder, so if it's moved, it will break. Once you enter what time you want it to check it will enable the plist and set the time. You can enter "disable" to turn the launchd item off.

I hope that this app will help alleviate some of the confusion of the TSM systems for users. Please ask questions, tell me if something breaks, or if you want to change it to fit your environment!

Cheers,
Rusty

TSM is http://www-01.ibm.com/software/tivoli/products/storage-mgr/

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