ADSM/TSM Tivoli Storage Manager Network Backup for Personal Workstations

There are two kinds of programmers: those who have lost data, and those who will.

Backup your personal computer over the network, unattended. Retrieve files inadvertently erased or recover from hard disk failure. Do this before you lose files.

ADSM on Personal Workstations

ADSM is a utility to backup the hard drive on your on-campus networked personal computer (Windows, Mac, or Unix). Usually, one would have to buy a tape drive or use other backup tools to backup your hard drive. The ACCC, however, offers the ADSM backup service for all staff/faculty on campus free of charge. You simply use this to backup your drive over the network to tapes that we maintain. If you ever experience a hard drive crash or accidentally delete a file, you can restore it from the tapes.

ADSM on the ACCC UNIX Servers

ADSM is also used to back up user accounts on the ACCC UNIX servers. In addition to making it available to faculty and staff for their personal machines, the ACCC uses ADSM to back up user accounts on tigger, icarus, and mailserv. An ADSM backup is run on each ACCC UNIX workstation every night, time permitting. You can restore copies of your files from these system backups by yourself, using the command dsmc (for text mode) or dsm (for X Windows). See DSMC on ACCC Unix and Unix DSMC FAQ above.

An important use of the ADSM backups, especially those of files on tigger, icarus, and mailserv, is recovering lost email. (But only email that stayed on tigger, icarus, or mailserv overnight is likely to have been backed up with ADSM on the server. If it's on your personal computer, it's up to you to back it up yourself.) The Unix DSMC FAQ has more information.

The ADSM Network Backup system now keeps 7 versions of files that are changing frequently; previously it had only kept 3 versions. For files that are not changing frequently, old versions are kept only 30 days. The current version of an existing file is kept as long as the file exists. The last version of a file that has been deleted is kept for 30 days after it is deleted. (Which means you have only 30 days to get back a file that you accidentally delete.)

This is of particular importance for files that change daily, the most common of which are email Inboxes. This means that ADSM now has copies of your email inboxes going back a whole week. (Previously we kept only 3 copies, which translated into 3 days.) This change applies to all ACCC email servers -- tigger, icarus, and mailserv -- as well as to all mailboxes on your desktop computer as long as you back them up daily.

You can now see these versions on systems where you can get a shell session (tigger and icarus, or any type of Unix on your desktop) by specifying the -pick -inactive switches on the dsmc restore command. On GUI systems (Windows and Mac), you can see them by clicking View --> Display active/inactive files.

The Unix DSMC FAQ has instructions on how to get back email that was backed up on tigger or icarus. If your email account is on mailserv, and the email that you need to restore was stored on the server, you still have to ask us to do the restore for you. But now we've got a whole week to respond to your request for a mailserv restore.

Questions or comments about UIC's ADSM Network Backup service, or submit mailserv restore requests, should be directed to datasave@uic.edu.

• ADSM is offered only to individual UIC faculty and staff members for use on their own primary, exclusively used, personal computer or UNIX workstation located on the UIC campus.
  
  
• ADSM is not available for use on public-access workstations including public lab personal computers.
  
  
• ADSM is not available for use on any system that operates as a server. This includes LAN file servers: group, departmental, or class Web servers; or multi-user workstations. The administrators for these servers are responsible for making their own arrangements for tape backup.
  
  
• Given the high volume of data that is transferred when using ADSM, it can not be used from off-campus or from any type of outside connection, including the ACCC dialin lines. It may be used only with on-campus Ethernet network connections. The huge amount of data transferred during network backup makes it unusable over modem connections, or any type of DSL or cable TV connection even if physically located on campus.
  
  
• ADSM for personal computer is for faculty and staff only, and you must have a UIC netid and a password which will allow you to authenticate with Bluestem. If you do not yet have an account you can open an ACCC account online: ACCC Account Creation.
  
  
• Each faculty or staff member may register only one machine.
  
  
• Exceptions may be granted based on need; please send email explaining your reasons to datasave@uic.edu.

And please back up only your files and documents, not scratch directories and not operating systems or software files that you can get back by re-installing. (The default ADSM options files provided with the ACCC ADSM client software is already set up to do this.)

For more information or to sign up to use ADSM, click whichever of the MS Windows or Macintosh links above is appropriate for your machine.

Note: We do not support the Archive function of the Tivoli Storage Manager system and we have no plans to support it in the future.