ADSM/TSM on FreeBSD

[Lukas Ertl]

Hi there,

I'm not quite sure if -isp is the best list to post this to, so if anyone
knows a better place, let me know.

I'm currently investigating the status quo of ADSM/TSM backup systems on
FreeBSD. For those of you who don't know, TSM stands for Tivoli Storage
Management and is an IBM Backup/Restore "solution".
<http://www-3.ibm.com/software/tivoli/products/storage-mgr/>

We are using this backup technique exclusively here at the University of
Vienna, and most of our hosts are backing up to a TSM server with a big
tape robot.

The problem is that there is no native FreeBSD client for TSM. There are
in fact various Linux clients that are supposed to work, but the gotcha is
that since it runs under Linux emu, it only sees the "real" FreeBSD
directories/filesystems that have no complement under /compat/linux (so if
you're backing up /bin you get /compat/linux/bin, and for /usr you get
/compat/linux/usr and so on). There are some hacks and workarounds for
this (like NFS exporting you filesystems and doing local remounting or
null mounting you filesystem hierarchy under an artificial mountpoint like
/adsmhier), but all in all the linux TSM client is quite a PITA.

Another possibility (and we are doing this now) is using an ancient SCO
client that can be run under ibcs2 emu, but since this client is really
old I'm afraid it will be incompatible with the server some day and since
it seems to have problems under -current, I'm looking for a better
solution.

I contacted IBM regarding a native FreeBSD client (shouldn't be a real
problem, and they are already offering clients for a sh*tload if OSs, see
<ftp://service.boulder.ibm.com/storage/tivoli-storage-management/maintenance/client/>),
and this is what I got back:

---8<---
Lukas, there is currently not an IBM Tivoli Storage Manager client for
FreeBSD or NetBSD. Likewise, it is not recommended to "make it work"
using the available Linux emulation layer as well, since the TSM server
may not be able to store information about this scenario properly.  I
will, however, forward your request to a marketing representative for
consideration.  Thank you for your feedback.
---8<---

And asked again if it would make sense to setup something like a petition
(as we have done for NVidias video drivers), and I got this:

---8<---
Your request has been forwarded as a suggestion, Lukas.  As such, it may
not get an overt response from our marketing or development departments.
But for the time being, unfortunately, FreeBSD is not supported.

That does not mean your suggestion has not been heard, however.  If you
want to pursue this issue, I would recommend that you and other FreeBSD
users get involved with some of the IBM Tivoli User Groups and keep up
the suggestions.  If there truly is a large FreeBSD community out there,
a campaign to contact our sales staff with this request would also help
make the point.
---8<---

So, this means to me that we should contact them and flood them with
requests for a native FreeBSD TSM client. :-)

Any comments?

regards,
le

PS: As already said, if there's a better place to submit this, tell me. Is
there an "official" contact in the FreeBSD project responsible for
requests like this one?

-- 
Lukas Ertl                             eMail: l.ertl at univie.ac.at
UNIX-Systemadministrator               Tel.:  (+43 1) 4277-14073
Zentraler Informatikdienst (ZID)       Fax.:  (+43 1) 4277-9140
der Universität Wien                   http://mailbox.univie.ac.at/~le/