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Lustre home directories in the /sdf/home file system are backed up nightly.  By default, we do not backup other NFS, GPFS, or Lustre file systems unless requested to do so (opt-in). In those cases, backups run nightly and tapes must be provided by the groups who own the data. Please submit a backup request to unix-adminadmin@slac.stanford.edu.

Those NFS/GPFS/Lustre file systems that are backed up are done so via IBM Spectrum Protect (formerly Tivoli Storage Manager (ITSM, or commonly just TSM) software. We currently support RHEL 6/7 and Centos 7 x86/x64 clients. Solaris SPARC/x86/x64 clients will be supported until existing hosts are retired.

Files are recovered from TSM by using the dsmj (GUI) or dsmc (command line) programs. If you backed up files from a Centos public machine, then you can also restore the file from that same host. Users may recover any file owned by their account using either interface, though the graphical interface may be easier to understand. See the How-to article "Restoring files using TSM" for instructions on restoring your files. To request the restoration of files you do not own or that were backed up directly from To request a file restore for an NFS/GPFS/Lustre server (as opposed to the client you login to), file/directory that you have access to, please send email to unix-adminadmin@slac.stanford.edu.  Include an explanation, the full path to the file/directory, and from what point in time you need a restore.

TSM Spectrum Protect is an incremental backup system. It backs up only the files that changed since the last backup, and maintains information on the state of the client file system. It is possible to restore the file system to the last backup state, and to restore some older versions of deleted files. TSM Spectrum Protect is not configured to restore the file system to the state it had at a specific point in time, i.e., it may not be possible to restore a directory to the way it looked 4 weeks ago at 12pm or any other particular day or time. Such a policy would use significantly more tape space since the backup server would be forced to keep a copy of every file version going back to that date.

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Spectrum Protect Schedule and Retention Policy

The TSM Spectrum Protect backup runs each night, usually starting sometime between 12:00AM-5:00AM on TSM client machines.

TSM Spectrum Protect maintains backup data for both active and inactive file versions. An active version of a file is the most recent backup copy of a file stored in TSM Spectrum Protect for a file that currently exists on a file server or workstation. An active version remains active on tape and exempt from tape deletion until: 1) replaced by a new backup version or 2) TSM Spectrum Protect detects, during an incremental backup, that the user has deleted the original file from a file server or workstation. An inactive version of a file is a copy of a backup file in TSM Spectrum Protect that either is not the most recent version, or the corresponding original file was deleted from the client file system.

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AFS Backups and Recovering Your Own Files

Older Legacy home directories are located in the AFS file system and are backed up nightly, as are most (but not all) AFS group directories.  AFS backups are provided by TiBS software from Teradactyl. The unit of AFS file storage and backup is the volume. Typically, each user's home directory is a single volume. For the first level of backup, TiBS creates a copy of each volume at midnight each night. This copy is called a "backup volume". You can find this backup volume from the .backup link in each home directory. If you have just deleted or damaged a file that existed at midnight the previous night, type "cd ~/.backup" to find a version of it from the previous day and copy it back into your home directory.

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AFS backups are not yet retrievable by users with the exception of those files that are located in the user's .backup subdirectory created each around midnight. See the AFS Restore web page or send email to unix-admin admin@slac.stanford.edu to request the retrieval of a file from backup tape.

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