Linux ADSM Mini-Howto


by Thomas König, Thomas.Koenig@ciw.uni-karlsruhe.de

v, 15 January 1997
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This document describes how to install and use a client for the commercial ADSM
backup system for Linux/i386.
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1. Introduction

ADSM is a network-based backup system, sold by IBM, in use at many
organizations. There are clients for a large variety of systems (different UNIX
brands, Windows, Novell, Mac, Windows NT). Unfortunately, at the time of this
writing, there is no native Linux version.
You will have to use the SCO binary, and install the iBCS2-emulator for running
ADSM. This description is for ADSM v2r1.
At the time if this writing, I am only aware of a version which works with the
i386 version of Linux.

2. Installing the iBCS module

The iBCS2 module is available from ftp://tsx-11.mit.edu/pub/linux/BETA/ibcs2.
If you are running kernel version 1.2.13, get ibcs-1.2-950721.tar.gz, unpac it
and apply the patches ibcs-1.2-950808.patch1 and ibcs-1.2-950828.patch2. You
can then type "make" and install the iBCS modlue with "insmod".
For a 2.0 kernel version, get ibcs-2.0-960610.tar.gz, unpack it in a suitable
place, chdir into that directory, and apply the following patch:


  --- iBCSemul/ipc.c.orig Wed Jan 15 21:32:15 1997
  +++ iBCSemul/ipc.c      Wed Jan 15 21:32:31 1997
  @@ -212,7 +212,7 @@
          switch (command) {
                  case U_SEMCTL:
                          cmd = ibcs_sem_trans(arg3);
  -                       arg4 = (union semun *)get_syscall_parameter (regs,
  4);
  +                       arg4 = (union semun *)(((unsigned long *) regs->esp)
  + (5));
                          is_p = (struct ibcs_semid_ds *)get_fs_long(arg4-
  >buf);
   #ifdef IBCS_TRACE
                          if ((ibcs_trace & TRACE_API) || ibcs_func_p-
  >trace)

Then, copy CONFIG.i386 to CONFIG, and type make.
If you don't have them already, create the needed device files by executing

  # cd /dev
  # ln -s null XOR
  # ln -s null X0R
  # mknod socksys c 30 0
  # mknod spx c 30 1


3. Installing the ADSM client

The SCO binary is supplied as three tar files, or disks. Change to the root
directory, set your umask according to your policies, and unpack them from
there (as root). In your Directory /tmp, you will find an installation script;
execute that.
You will then have to hand-edit /usr/adsm/dsm.sys and /usr/adsm/dsm.opt. In
dsm.sys, important lines to specify are:


  Servername
      The name of the server

  TCPServeraddress
      The fully qualified host name of the server

  NODename
      Your own hostname

In dsm.opt, you will have to specify


  Server
      As before

  Followsymbolic
      Wether or not to follow symbolic links (not a good idea, in general)

  SUbdir
      Wether to back up subdirectories (you usually want that)

  domain
      The file systems to back up

You will then have to create a SCO-compatible /etc/mnttab from your /etc/fstab.
You can use the following Perl script, fstab2mnttab, for this.

     ---------------------------------------------------------------------

       #!/usr/bin/perl

       $mnttab_struct = "a32 a32 I L";

       open(MTAB, "/etc/mtab") || die "Cannot open /etc/mtab: $!\n";
       open(MNTTAB, ">/etc/mnttab") || die "Cannot open /etc/mnttab:
       $!\n";

       while(<MTAB>) {
           next if /pid/;
           chop;
           /^(\S*)\s(\S*)\s(\S*)\s.*$/;
           $device = $1;
           $mountpt = $2;
           $fstype = $3;
           if($fstype ne "nfs" &amp;&amp; $fstype ne "proc") {
               $mnttab_rec =
                   pack($mnttab_struct, $device, $mountpt, 0x9d2f, time
       ());
               syswrite(MNTTAB, $mnttab_rec, 72);
               print "Made entry for: $device $mountpt $fstype\n";
           }
       }

       close(MNTTAB);
       exit 0;

     ---------------------------------------------------------------------

You do not need to install any shared libraries for these clients; everything
is linked statically.

4. Running the client

There are two clients, dsm, which is an X11 interface, and dsmc, a command-line
interface. Your computer centre will tell you how to run it. Some startup
script at boot, for example

  dsmc schedule -quiet 2>&amp;1 >/dev/null &amp;

will probably be required.

5. Known Problems

Unfortunately, SCO can only deal with hostnames no longer than eight
characters. If your hostname is longer, or fully qualified, you may need to
specify your hostname on the NODename line in /usr/adsm/dsm.sys.
If you use the DISPLAY variable, you will have to supply the fully qualified
host name (i.e. DISPLAY=host.full.do.main:0 instead of DISPLAY=host:0).