About environment variables in the backup selections list
NDMP lets you use environment variables to pass configuration parameters to an NDMP host with each backup. NDMP environment variables can be one of the following types:
Defined as optional by the NDMP protocol specification.
You can set these variables.
Specific to an NDMP host vendor.
You can set these variables.
See About NAS appliances support. for up-to-date information on environment variables relating to particular NAS vendors. The topic also contains configuration and troubleshooting help for particular NAS systems.
For Isilon filers only, note the following behaviors with environmental variables:
With Isilon filers, if you set the HIST environment variable in a NetBackup NDMP backup policy with Accelerator enabled, you may specify only the value D (that is, SET HIST=D). D specifies a directory/node file history format. If you specify any other value for the HIST variable, NetBackup generates a message that asks you to change the value to D. If you do not use a HIST variable in the policy, the backup should complete successfully.
If you change any of the variables in a NetBackup NDMP backup policy with Accelerator enabled, the Accelerator optimization will be 0% until you run a second full backup with the same variables. When the policy's variables change, a new baseline image is created with the first full backup. You will see Accelerator optimization only after the second full backup with the same variables.
Reserved for use by NetBackup:
FILESYSTEM
DIRECT
EXTRACT
ACL_START
In NetBackup, environment variables can be set within the backup selections list by specifying one or more SET directives.
Note:
In the backup selections list, the SET directive must be the first in the list, followed by the file systems or volumes to back up.
In general, the syntax of a SET directive is as follows:
SET variable = value
Where variable is the name of the environment variable and value is the value that is assigned to it. The value can be enclosed in single or double quotes, and must be enclosed in quotes if it contains a space character. For example:
SET ABC = 22 SET DEF = "hello there"
Setting a variable equal to no value removes any value that was set previously for that variable. For example:
SET ABC = SET DEF =
Variables accumulate as the backup selections list is processed. For example, a backup selection may contain the following entries:
/vol/vol1 SET HIST = N /vol/vol2 SET DEF = 20 SET SAMPLE = all /vol/vol3
In this example, directory/vol/vol1 is backed up without any user-specified environment variables. The second directory (/vol/vol2) is backed up with the variable HIST set to N. The third directory (/vol/vol3) is backed up with all three of the environment variables set (HIST = N, DEF = 20, and SAMPLE = all).
Note:
You cannot restore a single file if HIST = N is set. Only full volume restores are available when the HIST variable is set to N.
If an environment variable appears again later in the list, the value of this variable overrides the previous value of the variable.
The values that each backup uses are saved and provided to subsequent restores of the directory. The NDMP host may have some environment variables that are set internally and these are also saved for restores.
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