Restoring from IFS

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As you probably already know, in OS/400 (i5/OS) it is not enough to just know the name
of an object to be restored, you must also know the library or directory it was saved from,
the tape file label and in most cases, the sequence number on the tape. The more
information you can provide to the OS/400 restore function, the quicker it will run.

As when doing OS/400 object restores, you can always do a DSPTAP to a spool file to
find the right information for an IFS RST command. This will give you all of the
information you need for your restore, but running the DSPTAP command is painfully
slow on most systems and tape media.

The good news is that, as with my earlier tip, there is a way to save information about the
objects included in the IFS SAV at the time it is created. The SAV command, like
SAVOBJ and SAVLIB, allows you to keep the details of your backup by specifying a
value in the OUTPUT parameter. You can store the information in a spool file by using
the *PRINT option or you can place the information in a database file by specifying a file
path. Since spool files have a way of getting cleared from your system, I recommend the
latter. Also, make sure to specify the INFTYPE (*ALL) option so that all of the file
information appears on the output detail.

On the SAV command, the data that is saved with your OUTPUT parameter is saved in
the exact same format as it appears on the spool file report. Unlike the SAVOBJ/SAVLIB
OUTPUT parameter, the fields are not nicely set up for you in standard OS/400 database
format. So, working with this information is not quite a clean as you might like.

To find information about a backup, just reference your OS/400 database to track down
the tape volume, sequence number and tape label information. When it comes to have to
restore a single IFS object in a hurry, having this information at your fingertips will be
most helpful.

I have used this approach for a long time on our system and can always find objects for
restore very quickly. If you're unfamiliar with working with IFS file objects, you might
find it easier to work with the spool files. In this case, it is an easy process to create your
spool file, and then convert the file into a database file using the CPYSPLF command.

If you have specific questions about this topic, e-mail me at rich@kisco.com. All e-mail
messages will be answered

Cleaning IFS files

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Although there are many ways to clean up IFS files, it seems that the easiest way is to use
QShell.
Create a QTXTSRC file with all the IFS directories you want to clean out. Specify the
number of days old. The example below uses 31 and 60 days old.

*************** Beginning of data ********

0001.00 find /Directory/Backup/*.* -mtime +31 -exec rm -d {} ;

0002.00 find /Otherfile/stuff/*.* -mtime +60 -exec rm -d {} ;

Then run the command like -

STRQSH CMD('qsys.lib/imgprdsrc.lib/qtxtsrc.file/vimgifsarc.mbr')