BACKUP-SYSTEM

The BACKUP-SYSTEM offers a variety of facilities for copying files to and from disks, floppy disks, and magnetic tapes. Files stored on remote computer systems may also be copied.

The files may be copied for archiving, backup, or other purposes. To enable communication with other computer installations, the ANSI standard label format is available for magnetic tapes.

Entering commands to the BACKUP-SYSTEM is easy, but slightly different from SINTRAN III. Some commands have subcommands, i.e., the parameter sequence is not solely determined by the first command entered. Online help information is available for every prompted command, subcommand or parameter at all levels of communication.

The old SINTRAN III commands @COPY-USERS-FILES, @CREATE-VOLUME and @LIST-VOLUME are now available under the BACKUP-SYSTEM. The commands have some extended and altered facilities.

The BACKUP-SYSTEM can handle files produced under older versions of SINTRAN III.

This article is a stub. You can improve NDWiki by expanding it.

Label format on magnetic tape volumes

Implementation of magnetic tape volumes is based upon the American National Standard Magnetic Tape Labels for Information Interchange X3.27-1969.

However, some deviations from the standard have been made. Deviations are marked by a dollar sign ($) in the explanation.

General rules:

- The general tape layout is as follows:

                VOL1 HDR1 HDR2 UHL1*-file-*EOF1
                                *HDR1 HDR2 UHL1*-file2- * ( EOF1 OR EOV1 ) **

where VOL1,HDR1,HDR2,UHL1, EOF1, and EOV1 are tape labels, and asterisks are tape marks.

- All labels are 0 character blocks.

- All information in the labels is recorded as ASCII characters with the parity bit cleared. All unused character positions will contain spaces. $ The user option field (3) in the label UHL1 contains binary information.

- File data is recorded as 204 character blocks. These blocks may contain any character (0-255).

$$$$ Deviation From Standard

- Only the first file on a volume may be extended to other volumes.

A nonstandard label, HOLE, has been introduced. This label can be inserted between the file data blocks. The important information in this label is a 32-bit binary number contained in characters 77-80 of the label. The BACKUP-SYSTEM uses this number in the following way:

Each 2048 character block on the tape corresponds to a 1024 16-bit word block on the disk, referred to as a page. The pages are numbered O, 1, 2, 3, etc., to establish a logical sequence of pages. If the logical sequences are not continuous, then a HOLE label defines where the next block on the magnetic tape logically belongs in the disk file. In order to represent a logical HOLE on the magnetic tape, the HOLE label will be inserted in front of the next block, stating this block's logical number. Blocks of 2048 characters without a HOLE label are expected to belong to a continuous logical area, and will cause the logical block number to be incremented by one.

Example:

log. block no: O          5    6    7        100  101       120
              data HOLE data data data HOLE data data HOLE data
                   (5)                 (100)          (120)

where data represents file data blocks of 204 characters, and HOLEs are labels. The contents of the HOLE labels are shown in parentheses.

                    VOLUME HEADER LABEL
POSITION FIELD NAME                LENGTH CONTENTS
1-3      1     label identifier      3    VOL
4        2     label number          1    1
5-10     3     volume serial number  6    (volume name) $
11       4     accessibility         1    (space)
12-31    5     (not used)           20    (spaces)
32-37    6     (not used)            6    (spaces)
38-51    7     owner identification 14    (name of owner) $
52-79    8     (not used)           28    (spaces)
80       9     label standard level  1    (spaces)

$ field 3 and 7

- These fields may contain any alphanumeric characters. If the field is not fully filled with characters, the last character in the string is an apostrophe. This character is used to mark the end of the string and is not part of the name. The unused part of such a field is filled with spaces.

               FIRST FILE HEADER LABEL
POSITION FIELD  NAME                    LENGTH CONTENTS
  1- 3   1      label identifier          3    HDR
  4      2      label number              1    1
5-21    3      file identifier          17    (file name) $
22-27    4      set identification        6    (file type) $
28-31    5      file section number       4    (0001-0002-nnnn)
32-35    6      file sequence number      4    (0001-0002-nnnn)
36-39    7      generation number         4    (file generation) $
40-41    8      generation version number 2    (version number) $
42-47    9      creation date             6    (ANSI standard date) $
48-53   10      expiration date           6    (spaces) $
54      11      accessibility             1    (space)
55-60   12      block count               6    000000
61-73   13      system code              13    (spaces)
74-80   14      (not used)                7    (spaces)

$ field 3:

- An apostrophe is used to mark the end of the string. This character is not a part of the name. The unused part of a field is filled with spaces.

$ field 4:

- Only the first four characters are used in this field. If it is shorter than four characters, an apostrophe is used to mark the end of the string.

$ field 7:

- Any alphanumeric characters. The field is left justified, and an apostrophe is used to mark the end of the string. The character code in this field identifies a backup generation of files.

$ field 8:

- This field contains numbers from 1 to 99. The characters are left justified, and one digit numbers will have an apostrophe in the right character position. This number identifies different versions of files with identical file names (fields 3 and 4), and each version must be treated as an individual file.

$ fields 9 and 10:

- Creation and expiration dates are not used, and the fields will contain spaces.

Product number

• ND-10337
• ND-210337