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Tivoli Storage Manager for NetWare Backup-Archive Client Installation and User's Guide


Return Codes from the Command Line Interface

Earlier versions of the backup-archive client did not exit with consistent, documented return codes. This made automation with scripts, batch files, or other scheduling facilities difficult, since there was no easy means of accurately determining the success or failure of the client operation.

The backup-archive command line interface now exits with a return code that accurately reflects the success or failure of the client operation. Users who already have scripts, batch files, or other scheduling or automation facilities that interpret the return code from the command line interface may need to make changes in order to accommodate these new return codes.

In general, the return code is related to the highest severity message during the client operation.

The exception to the above rules are warning or error messages that individual files could not be processed. For such a skipped file, the return code will be 4. For cases where the return code is not 0, you can examine the dsmerror.log file (and, for scheduled events, the dsmsched.log file).

For a description of the return codes and their meanings, see Table 13


Table 13. Return Codes and Meanings

Code Explanation
0 All operations completed successfully.
4 The operation completed successfully, but some files were not processed. There were no other errors or warnings. This return code is very common. Files are not processed for various reasons. The most common reasons are:
  • The file is in an exclude list..
  • The file was in use by another application and could not be accessed by the client
  • The file changed during the operation to an extent prohibited by the copy serialization attribute. See "Copy Serialization".
8 The operation completed with at least one warning message. For scheduled events, the status will be "Completed". Review dsmerror.log (and dsmsched.log for scheduled events) to determine what warning messages were issued and to assess their impact on the operation.
 12  The operation completed with at least one error message (except for error messages for skipped files). For scheduled events, the status will be "Failed". Review dsmerror.log (and dsmsched.log for scheduled events) to determine what error messages were issued and to assess their impact on the operation. As a general rule, this return code means that the error was severe enough to prevent the successful completion of the operation.

For example, an error that prevents an entire drive from being processed yields return code 12. When a file is not found the operation yields return code 12.

The return code for a client macro will be the highest return code issued among the individual commands that comprise the macro. For example, suppose a macro consists of these commands:
SELECTIVE C:\MyTools\* -SUBDIR=YES
INCREMENTAL C:\MyPrograms\TestODBCDriver\* -SUBDIR=YES
ARCHIVE E:\TSM510C\* -SUBDIR=YES

If the first command completes with return code 0; the second command completes with return code 8; and the third command completes with return code 4, the return code for the macro will be 8.


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