Admin Client Options

Before I dive into the backup and restore I did this last weekend I want to give some idea of my preferred working interface. I started working with Tivoli Storage Manager administration through the WebClient that was packaged with version 5.2 and older. I always found this interface easy to work with although also a little cumbersome and out of date (although calling it out of date will seem odd for me in a moment). Then they decided to come out with the new and improved Integrated Solutions Console. And I had thought the WebClient was clumsy. The more I used the ISC the less I liked it. Everything in it seemed to be hard to locate and it took more resources from the machine than I liked. Of course, you can always add the WebClient back in to the new versions, but some of the commands don't work since the parameteres for the commands have changed.

So with both of the available GUI clients hard to use or not truly supported I moved to the only option left - the command line client. This quickly became my admin interface of choice. It is actually much easier to use and easier to work with than wither of the others. It just takes a little time to get used to it. The biggest question that comes up is the format of the commands to enter. This is easily resolved with the great help text that come with the client installation. What I usually do, especially if it is something I am not real familiar with, is open two command prompts. One I use to enter commands while using the other to display help information and the syntax of the command (see picture above).



Of course before you can do this, you need two things. The first is a dsm.opt file that leads to the server. An image of this file with the basic options in it is shown in the second image. The opt file is displaying the three basic options needed to connect:

commmethod TCPIP - How is the client going to communicate with the server. This is the default method and perfectly fine for this method of communication. NamedPipes is a good option when there is close communication and a lot of traffic, but this is best for what we are doing.

tcpport 1500 - If it is going to communicate on tcpip it needs a port. This is the standard default.

tcpserveraddress localhost - Name or IP address of the server. If you are working from the server as I am then localhost is fine.

This is enough to get the admin client connected. But what are you connecting. This is the second of the two items I mentioned you would need. There are two ways to start the admin. Usually when the client is installed, a link is created off the start button for the Administrative Command Line. Another option is to navigate to the baclient under the TSM folder. The name of the executable is dsmadmc. By opening a Windows command line and navigating to this location, you can enter dsmadmc and hit enter. The advantage to doing it this way is that if you mistype the password or exit the client for any other reason, just retype dsmadmc and try again.

Once the dsmadmc is started you will be prompted ro first a user name and then a password. Once those are entered you are ready to go. When you are done, just type quit and the command line will close up.