Lotus Server Incremental Backups

Owned by Kathy Kurth
Last updated: Dec 23, 2019 by Peter Lafler
6 min read

Setting up your Lotus Servers for Incremental Support

When setting up your Domino for IBM i servers for online backup - incremental support, you must enable transactional logging for each Lotus Notes server. You must also identify BRMS as an additional service by issuing either:

CHGDOMSVR ADLSRV(*BRMS)

or

CHGDOMSVR, F4, F10 and add *BRMS to the list of servers in the ADLSRV field.

Please refer to your Domino Administrator's Guides for details on how to enable Archival logging.

NOTES: 

  1. Failure to enable Archival logging on a database will result in that database being missed from the incremental save.
  2. Circular logging is not supported for incremental save/restore. Therefore, under the Transactional Logging tab, Logging style needs to be changed from "Circular" to "Archived". If this is not done, the save via BRMS will be cancelled with error LNT0950 return code 12.

Setting up BRMS for Incremental Support

You must take the following actions to set up BRMS for Lotus Server online backup - incremental support:

  • Load the BRMS PTF as defined in the Software requirements section above.
  • Verify the Lotus servers and the associated databases are enabled for Archival logging.
  • Complete a normal full online backup of your Lotus servers.
    NOTE: You must run a backup of type *FULL of all Lotus servers that are to be backed up before using the online backup - incremental support.
  • Use the WRKCTLGBRM command to view the list of backup control groups.
  • Use Option 2=Edit entries on each control group you use to perform online backups of your Lotus Servers that have been enabled for Archival Logging.
  • Set the Weekly Activity for the *EXIT entries which contain SAVDOMBRM to "I" for each day of the week on which you want incremental backups to be run.

 Recommendations

  1. You should set at least one day of the week to "F" so that a full online backup is performed at least once a week.
  2. Whenever you do a full online backup, you should precede it with an incremental backup to insure that you will be able to recover from the point in time up to the full.

The following is an example of what a control group could look like for one server:

 Edit Backup Control Group Entries RCHBRM
 Group . . . . . . . . . . : QLTSDOM00
 Default activity . . . . . *BKUPCY
 Text . . . . . . . . . . . NASCAR
 Type information, press Enter.
                 Auxiliary   Weekly   Retain  Save    SWA
     Backup List Storage     Activity Object  While   Message
 Seq Items  Type Pool Device SMTWTFS  Detail  Active  Queue

 10  *EXIT                   *DFTACT 	  	  	 
 20  *EXIT                   IIIIIII 	  	  	 
 30  *EXIT                   F  F 	  	  	 
 40  *EXIT                   *DFTACT

Restrictions

Restrictions 1 and 2 below are removed when you move to Domino 6.0.3 or 6.50 and apply PTF SI10612 (V5R1) or SI10615 (V5R2) to BRMS.

  1. You must perform a "F" (full) online backup of any new database, anytime you change the database instance identifier, or perform a point in time recovery of a database. Refer to your Domino Administrator's Guides for details on how to determine when these changes occur.
  2. Some Lotus server databases do not support incremental backup.

    To determine which databases:
    • Enter the WRKDOMSVR command.
    • Use Option 8=Work console next to the server name.
    • Enter the command sh directory on the command line.
    • Page up to the top of the page and locate the Logged column.
    • Any database where the value in this column is not set to YES cannot be backed up using the online-incremental support.
    NOTE: You need to evaluate whether any database not enabled for online-incremental support requires a backup. If a backup is required, then you will need to move this database to a Lotus server which is scheduled for regular full backups.
     
  3. The value of the Incremental type prompt on the attributes of backup control groups used for online - incremental support is not relevant. A value of *CUML or *INCR produces the same results.
  4. If a backup control group is set up to run an online - incremental backup and BRMS detects that no prior full backup exists, BRMS will perform an online - full backup instead of a online - incremental backup.
  5. You must use the same media class for the online - incremental backup that you use for the online - full backup. If the online - full backup went to tape media, the online - incremental cannot go to savefile or to a Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) server. Similarly, if the full save goes to i5OS virtual tape and is duplicated to physical media and then the virtual tape is expired, the next attempted incremental save to virtual tape will be a full save. In order to assure that your online-incremental backups use the same media types and retention when saving, BRMS recommends that you use the same media policy for both the full and incremental backup attributes of any backup control groups that you use. If the retention specified in the incremental media policy is less then the retention that was previously specified for this package, the longest one will be used. Therefore an incremental media policy can only increase the retention for all the saved items in a domino package, it can not shorten it.
  6. You are limited to 98 online - incremental backups of a Lotus server before you must perform an online - full backup. BRMS recommends that you perform an online - full backup of your Lotus servers at least once a week.

 Setting up BRMS to restore Incremental Backups

There is no special setup to recover an online - incremental backup. The BRMS default is to recover the online - full backup and any subsequent online - incremental backups, plus any unsaved journals. This allows you to recover a database past the point-in-time of your last incremental save.

For example:

If you delete a database file my.nsf and then request it to be restored, BRMS will restore the online - full backup, any saved journals (online- incrementals), and since the current journals are on the system, these will also be used to bring the database back to the most current level.

If you need a point-in-time recovery earlier than the lastest version of a database, see Point-in-time recovery below.

When you view Lotus server online - incremental backups using the WRKMEDIBRM command, the package saved number for the online - full backup will increment for each online - incremental added to the full. The following is an example of the backup history for an online - full backup for which the were 3 online - incremental backups. Notice the number "5" in column 18 to the right of the *LINK Saved Item name.

              Work with Media Information

 Position to Date . . . . . __________

 Type options, press Enter.

   2=Change  4=Remove  5=Display  6=Work with media  7=Restore

   9=Work with saved objects
     Saved                   Save  Volume File     Expiration
 Opt Item   Date    Time     Type  Serial Sequence Date
 __ *LINK 5 4/15/01 20:05:34 *FULL 001050 0        8/24/01

Point-in-time recovery

You can perform point-in-time recovery of a Lotus server database saved using online - incremental backup. If you need a point in time other than the most current version of the database you must create an OS/400 data area object to specify the date and time to which the database is to be restored.

NOTE: This functionality is now available through the BRMS GUI in V5R2. The GUI does not require this data area. 

Recovering just the online - full backup (no incrementals)

  • Run the command:
    CRTDTAARA DTAARA(QTEMP/Q1APOINT) TYPE(*CHAR) LEN(14) VALUE('*FULL ')
  • Select Option 7=Restore next to the database to be restored.

Recovering to a point-in-time (full plus incrementals)

  • Run the command:
    CRTDTAARA DTAARA(QTEMP/Q1APOINT) TYPE(*CHAR) LEN(14) VALUE(yyyymmddhhmmss)

    where yyyy is the year, mm is the month, dd is the day, hh is the hour, mm is the minutes and ss is the seconds.

    Example

VALUE('20010525161212') represents a point-in-time of May 25th, 2001 at 16:12:12
NOTE: The time is entered in 24-hour clock format.

Select Option 7=Restore next to the database to be restored.

Restrictions removed

You no longer are restricted to only restore online - incremental backups to the same Lotus server from which it was backed up. With Domino for IBM i 5.0.10, you can restore the saved database to a different Domino server and with R5.0.11 you have the additional option of restoring to a different sub directory under the same server from which it was saved. For some additional information about restoring documents from a database see:

NOTE: The NNDILOCK.NSF file is a notes file for locking and will be automatically created if not there - so it is not backed up by the notes/400 on the SAVDOMBRM call.


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