[gpfsug-discuss] mmbackup valiating the backups

[Timm Stamer]

Hi ,

we're running mmbackup with -q option once a quarter to be sure
everything is backed up.
I think this is much simpler than your approach but maybe does not
cover all your needs.


-q
    Performs a query operation before issuing mmbackup. The IBM Storage
Protect server might have data stored already that is not recognized as
having been backed up by mmbackup and its own shadow database. To
properly compute the set of files that currently need to be backed up,
mmbackup can perform an IBM Storage Protect query and process the
results to update its shadow database. Use the -q switch to perform
this query and then immediately commence the requested backup
operation. 

https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/storage-scale/5.2.3?topic=reference-mmbackup-command


[...]
we=$(LC_TIME=C date +%A)
dm=$(date +%d)
dmonth=$(date +%m)
checkMonths=("01" "04" "07" "10")
[[ ${checkMonths[@]} =~ $dmonth ]] && [ "$we" = "Friday" ] && [ "$dm" -le 7 ] && QUERYBACKUP="-q"

mmbackup ... ${QUERYBACKUP} ...
[...]


Kind regards

Timm Stamer




Am Donnerstag, dem 15.01.2026 um 18:21 +0000 schrieb Peter Childs:
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> We use mmbackup to backup our Scale Storage to two IBM Protect
> Instances.
> 
> We would like to validate our backups to ensure that the files we
> have really are backed up and we don't have any problems.
> 
> So far I've worked out I can query the backups using "query backup --
> detail" in Protect and get times and dates, From this I can compare
> with `stat` and `ls` (or using mmapplypolicy (which should be
> faster)) to check the three indexes match, and check the contents of
> each directory. (Using --subdir=yes looks great on paper but the
> output takes days to appear and checking it file by file can be done
> incrementally and I can use mmapplypolicy to run the report.
> 
> Given the stats from Protect the two backup servers are reporting
> different occupancy figures which suggests to me we may have some
> inconsistencies. (We're talking a 1/2 TB difference between the two
> servers according to Protect Query Occupancy) but I'm aware that
> Protect's figures are estimates and not always accurate.
> 
> Verify the backup is always a good plan even if your 101% sure its
> correct anyway (and I'm not maybe). (Your backups are only as good as
> the last time you recalled them and all that)
> 
> We could use the shadow database. As this looks to be what Storage
> Archive does to say yes this file is backed up before it is archived.
> 
> Does anyone know the format of the shadow database, which fields are
> which, as I think knowing the format might allow us to at least know
> what the differences; and increase our confidence in the backup.
> 
> Thanks in advance.
> 
> Peter Childs
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