Archive Copy Directives

By default, the archiver writes a single archive copy for files in the archive set when the archive age of the file is four minutes. To change the default behavior, use archive copy directives. Archive copy directives must appear immediately after the archive set assignment directive to which they pertain.

The archive copy directives begin with a copy-number value of 1, 2, 3, or 4. The digit is followed by one or more arguments that specify archive characteristics for that copy. Each archive copy directive has the following format:

copy-number [ -release | -norelease ] [archive-age] [unarchive-age]

You can specify archive copy directives either by editing the archiver.cmd file as described in the following sections, or by using the SAM-QFS Manager software. For more information, see the SAM-QFS Manager online help.

The following sections describe the archive copy directive arguments.

-release Directive: Releasing Disk Space After Archiving

To specify that the disk space for files is released after an archive copy is made, use the -release directive after the copy number. This directive has the following format:

-release

Example 11-2 archiver.cmd File Using the -release Directive

In the following example, files within the group images are archived when their archive age reaches 10 minutes. After archive copy 1 is made, the disk cache space is released.

ex_set . -group images
1 -release 10m

-norelease Directive: Delaying Disk Space Release

The -norelease option prevents the automatic release of disk cache until all copies marked with -norelease are made. The -norelease directive makes the archive set eligible to be released after all copies have been archived, but the files are not released until the releaser is invoked and selects them as release candidates. This directive has the following format:

-norelease

Using the -norelease directive on a single copy has no effect on automatic releasing.

Example 11-3 archiver.cmd File Using the -norelease Directive

The following example specifies an archive set named vault_tapes. Two copies are created and then the disk cache associated with this archive set is released.

vault_tapes
1 -norelease 10m
2 -norelease 30d

Using -release and -norelease Together

To make sure that disk space is released immediately after all copies of an archive set have been archived, use the -release and -norelease directives together. The combination of -release and -norelease causes the archiver to release the disk space immediately after all copies having this combination are made, rather than waiting for the releaser to be invoked.

Setting the Archive Age

Change the timing for archiving files by specifying the archive age. Specify the time with a suffix character such as h for hours or m for minutes, as shown in Table 12-1.

Example 11-4 archiver.cmd File That Specifies the Archive Age

In the following example, the files in directory data are archived when their archive age reaches one hour.

ex_set data
1 1h

Unarchiving Automatically

If you specify more than one archive copy of a file, you can unarchive all but one of the copies automatically. You can do this when the files are archived to various media using various archive ages.

Example 11-5 archiver.cmd File that Specifies the Unarchive Age

The following example shows the directive that specifies the unarchive age. The first copy of the files in the path home/users is archived six minutes after modification. When the files are 10 weeks old, the archiver creates the second and third archive copies and unarchives the first copy.

ex_set home/users
1 6m 10w
2 10w
3 10w

For more ways to control unarchiving, see Chapter 12, Archive Set Directives (archiver.cmd).

Specifying More Than One Copy for Metadata

If more than one copy of metadata is required, place copy definitions in the archiver.cmd file immediately after the fs= directive.

Example 11-6 archiver.cmd File that Specifies Multiple Metadata Copies

In this example, one copy of the metadata for the samfs7 file system is made after 4 hours and a second copy is made after 12 hours.

fs = samfs7
1 4h
2 12h

File system metadata includes path names in the file system. If you have frequent changes to directories, the new path names cause the creation of new archive copies and result in frequent loading of the volumes specified for metadata.