About backing up the KMS database files

Backing up the KMS database involves backing up the KMS files.

The KMS utility has an option for quiescing the database files or temporarily preventing anyone from modifying the data files. It is important to run the quiesce option if you plan to copy the KMS_DATA.dat, KMS_HMKF.dat, and KMS_KPKF.dat files to another location for backing up purposes.

During quiesce, NetBackup removes write access from these files; only read access is allowed.

When you run nbkmsutil -quiescedb, it returns with a quiesce successful statement and an indication of the number of outstanding calls. The outstanding calls number is more of a count. A count is placed on the file for the number of outstanding requests on this file.

After quiesce, you can then back up the files by copying them to another directory location.

After you have copied the files, you can unquiesce the KMS database files by using nbkmsutil -unquiescedb.

After the outstanding quiesce calls count goes to zero, the KMS can run the commands that can modify the KMS_DATA.dat, KMS_HMKF.dat, and KMS_KPKF.dat files. Write access is once again returned to these files.