BACKUP=TSM ...

[kai-uwe-rommel]

Hi, when I use BACKUP=TSM then "rear mkbackup" will call "dsmc incremental", right? And thus backup the system into TSM which happens daily anyway.
But when I also set OUTPUT=ISO (or PXE) will then the rescue system that this creates (e.g. the ISO file or the initrd) also contain the TSM client so that when the rescue system is booted I can run "dsmc restore ..." to restore the data?

[kai-uwe-rommel]

Ok, I simply tried it and yes, it does.

[jsmeix]

@kai-uwe-rommel

FYI (1)
in general regarding issues with third-party backup tools:

Usually we at ReaR upstream do not have or use third-party backup tools
(in particular not if a third-party backup tool is proprietary software)
so usually we cannot reproduce issues with third-party backup tools.

In case of issues with third-party backup tools and ReaR
we at ReaR upstream can usually do nothing but totally
depend on contributions and help from those specific users
who use and know about each specific third-party backup tool.

FYI (2)
regarding what gets included in the rescue/recovery system
and how to test things inside the ReaR rescue/recovery system:

You could use KEEP_BUILD_DIR
(see its description in usr/share/rear/conf/default.conf)
to inspect the ReaR recovery system content directly
after "rear mkbackup/mkrescue".

To test whether or not things work inside the ReaR recovery system
without the need to boot the ReaR recovery system you could set

KEEP_BUILD_DIR="yes"

in your etc/rear/local.conf and after "rear mkrescue/mkbackup"
chroot into TMPDIR/rear.XXXX/rootfs/
and run things inside the ReaR recovery system as a test.
Of course such tests are no replacement for a real "rear recover" test,
cf. "No disaster recovery without testing and continuous validation" in
https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Disaster_Recovery
but such tests help to find obvious issues in the ReaR recovery system
more easily.

[jsmeix]

@kai-uwe-rommel

FYI (3)
regarding "rear mkbackup" versus "rear mkrescue":

When you use ReaR with BACKUP=TSM
but a daily backup with TSM happens anyway,
you may not need a TSM backup made by ReaR
so you may not call "rear mkbackup"
(creates ReaR recovery system plus a backup of the system's files)
but only "rear mkrescue"
(creates ReaR recovery system without backup of the system's files).

But note that the backup of the system's files
must be consistent with the ReaR recovery system,
see "Relax-and-Recover versus backup and restore" in
https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Disaster_Recovery