How to change backup type from incremental to archive or backup in TSM?

[infracoop]

It is possible to exchange backups from incremental to another type in TSM, since due to data permanence it is necessary to save historical data and this is only possible with archived

[jsmeix]

I am not a TSM user (I use no third party backup tools)
so I cannot really help with third party backup issues.

In general regarding issues with third-party backup tools:
Usually we at ReaR upstream do not use third-party backup tools
so usually we cannot reproduce issues with third-party backup tools.
Nevertheless we try to help as good as we can from plain looking at the code.

In this case the code that does the backup with TSM is mainly in
usr/share/rear/backup/TSM/default/500_make_TSM_backup.sh
that is in our GitHub master code currently
https://github.com/rear/rear/blob/master/usr/share/rear/backup/TSM/default/500_make_TSM_backup.sh

As far as I see dsmc incremental is hardcoded therein.

So the only way to change how backup with TSM is done by ReaR
is to modify that script and perhaps other scripts as needed.

BUT:
As far as I know usually backup with TSM
is not done by ReaR via "rear mkbackup"
but by calling TSM directly as needed to make the backup
and ReaR is only used for what it is primarily meant:
To create a ReaR rescue/recovery system via "rear mkrescue"
that has all included what is needed to restore with TSM
during disaster recovery via "rear recover".

See in "man rear"
https://github.com/rear/rear/blob/master/doc/rear.8.adoc
what it describes about "backup" therein in particular

BACKUP SOFTWARE INTEGRATION

...

There is a distinction between Relax-and-Recover
support for 3rd party backup software and
Relax-and-Recover internal backup methods.
The latter also creates a backup of your data
while the former will only integrate Relax-and-Recover
with the backup software to restore the data
with the help of the backup software
without actually creating backups.
This means that for all non-internal backup software
you must take care of creating backups yourself
(unless otherwise noted).

Especially the rear mkbackup command can be confusing
as it is only useful for the internal backup methods
and has usually no function at all with the other
(external) backup methods.

The following backup methods need to be set
in Relax-and-Recover with the BACKUP option.
As mentioned we have two types of BACKUP
methods - internal and external.

The following BACKUP methods are external
of Relax-and-Recover meaning that usually
you are responsible of backups being made:

...

BACKUP=TSM
Use IBM Tivoli Storage Manager to restore the data.
The Relax-and-Recover result files (e.g. ISO image)
are also saved into TSM.
There is a (currently experimental) first draft
implementation that a TSM backup is created by
calling 'dsmc incremental' during 'rear mkbackup'.

See also the section
"Relax-and-Recover versus backup and restore" in
https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Disaster_Recovery