*LNK - IFS Backup Lists

Backup IFS lists are referred to as LINK lists and are identified with a type of *LNK.

When using link lists in BRMS, users must be aware of how saves of *LINK can affect the recovery of link lists and what will be listed on the recovery reports.

When using user-created link lists (WRKLBRM, QLNKOMT, QLNKOMTLTS, QLNKOMTONL, or QLTSOMTONL) or special control group values (*LNKOMTONL, *LNKOMTLTS, or *LTSOMTONL) and doing full or cumulative saves, these will be listed on the recovery report.  However, if a full, cumulative or incremental save of *LINK is run, any link lists saved prior to that save will no longer be listed until they are saved again after the *LINK save.

Example:
                        Auxiliary   Weekly    Retain  Save      SWA     
      Backup      List  Storage     Activity  Object  While     Message
Seq   Items       Type  Pool Device SMTWTFS   Detail  Active    Queue   
  10  *LINK             *SYSBAS     F         *YES    *NO               
 20  USERLNK     *LNK               FFFFFF                             

Recovery report generated after control group ran on Thursday would reference the the *LINK volume and Thursdays volume for the USERLNK. 

When using link lists to do cumulative or incremental saves, users must be aware that BRMS does not use the reference date of the last full save of the *LINK that may have been done in a control group.  To do a cumulative save of a link list, do a full save of that specific link list first to allow BRMS to have a reference point.  BRMS does not use the reference date of the *LINK save for saves of Integrated File System link lists.

NOTES: Restrictions for using *CUML or *INCR link lists include

1. When a link list is saved incrementally, a full save of the list is required whenever a change is made to the link list entries before the incremental will pick up the changes.
2. An active full save of the link list is required in order for the *CUML or *INCR link list to be listed on the recovery report. BRMS will not force a full save of the list if all the full saves of the list are expired.
3. It is recommend only full saves of link lists are run if using a save strategy that includes *LINK and link lists to ensure all data is listed on recovery reports.
4. If using the *PATINCLUDE or *PATOMIT options in link lists that have start with an *, you will need to use the the following if wanting to specify *abig, use '**abig'