Tivoli Storage Manager on ESX Server 3.0

Okay, I just installed the Tivoli Storage Manager client, version 5.3.4, on my ESX Servers. This is my concise guide to getting it working, because I couldn’t find any documentation describing any of this in any decent order, at least on VMware’s web site.

I don’t intend to back my .vmdk files up, just the service console settings and whatnot (I’m doing the VM backups from inside each VM). Obviously that doesn’t stop you from modifying this, I just state it so you know what you’re getting into. :-)

0. Log into your ESX Server service console via SSH.

1. Install the client.

It’ll complain about not having ksh installed. Try using “–nodeps”:

rpm -ihv --nodeps TIVsm-API.i386.rpm TIVsm-BA.i386.rpm

I don’t know if this will come back to bite me or not, but it seems to work fine on my servers.

2. Fix the client’s inability to find dsmclientV3.cat.

ln -s /opt/tivoli/tsm/client/lang/en_US
/opt/tivoli/tsm/client/ba/bin/en_US

This fixes the errors:

ANS9999E amsgrtrv.cpp(3087): Message No 11000 could not be found.
ANS9999E amsgrtrv.cpp(3087): Message No 11000 could not be found.
ANS0101E Unable to open English message repository 'dsmclientV3.cat'.

3. Add dsm.sys, dsm.opt, inclexcl files.

Those links are to sample files. Feel free to steal them, but you’ll need to set the node name and server settings in both dsm.sys and dsm.opt.

4. Open the firewall so that dsmc can communicate out.

esxcfg-firewall --allowOutgoing

The ‘POLLING’ mode of the client should take care of the lack of incoming connections. If you really need incoming TSM connections (for “PROMPTED” mode) check out the “esxcfg-firewall –allowService TSM” option. I strongly urge you to consider polling mode for all your machines, as it’s easier to maintain.

5. Edit /etc/rc.local and add:

# Start the TSM client
/opt/tivoli/tsm/client/ba/bin/dsmc schedule >/dev/null &

6. Do whatever else you need to do to register the node.

7. Run the scheduler in the background.

/opt/tivoli/tsm/client/ba/bin/dsmc schedule >/dev/null &

Rejoice, for you are now backing your service console up.