A little over a year ago, I published a tip on how to simplify individual object restores on your System i processor. That article concentrated on how to easily restore objects to the OS/400 database in the QSYS library file system. In this tip, I'll cover a similar method that can be used with objects stored in the Integrated File System (IFS).
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.
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About the author: Rich Loeber is president of Kisco Information Systems Inc. in Saranac Lake, N.Y. The company is a provider of various security products for the iSeries market.
