Admin Alert: When Did I Last Use That Save Command?

by Joe Hertvik

For disaster recovery and auditing system backups, it helps to know when you last used the save commands, such as Save System (SAVSYS), Save Configuration (SAVCFG), or Save Library (SAVLIB), to save OS/400 system information. You may also need information on system backups, such as the media device type (such as tape or save file) your saves were performed to, the save volume name and sequence number of the media, and file label IDs. Here's how find that information.

Although IBM doesn't provide an elegant way to retrieve this information, there is a group of data areas that you can coax this information from. In OS/400 V5R1 and V4R5, save information is stored in the QSYS library in the following data areas:

• QSAVSYS--the last time the SAVSYS command was run.
• QSAVCFG--the last run of the SAVCFG command. SAVCFG saves configuration and system resource management objects.
• QSAVUSRPRF--the last time user profile configurations were saved.
• QSAVIBM--the last time the SAVLIB command was run using the *IBM setting, which saves all the OS/400 system libraries. System library names generally start with the letter Q, though not every Q library is considered a system library.
• QSAVALLUSR--the last time the SAVLIB command was run with the *ALLUSR setting, which saves all the user libraries. User libraries include most OS/400 libraries whose names don't start with a Q, as well as some other Q libraries that aren't considered system libraries, such as QGPL, the performance libraries (whose names start with QMPG and QPFR), and several libraries whose names start with QUSR.
• QSAVLIBALL--the last time the SAVLIB command was run with the *NONSYS setting, which saves all user-created libraries, licensed program libraries, QGPL, and all library names beginning with QUSR, including the QUSRSYS libraries.
• QSAVSTG--the last time the Save Storage (SAVSTG) command was run. SAVSTG saves a copy of the licensed internal code and most of the contents of auxiliary storage to tape.

These data areas provide enough information on the native OS/400's save history to completely restore your system.

The downside of using these data areas is that they don't provide any information on the OS/400 save configurations that don't save basic system information. There isn't a data area that holds information about the last time the Save Document Library Object (SAVDLO) or Save Object (SAV) commands were run, for example. In particular, the lack of a SAV command data area is a significant gap, because several key licensed programs, including WebSphere and Domino, store a significant portion of their configuration information in the OS/400 IFS. So while you can use IBM's data areas to find out the last save date, they may not give you a complete picture of your backup history, depending on how heavily your applications rely on DLOs or OS/400 IFS.

As I mentioned, these data areas contain information about your OS/400 save history, but there's a trick to that information. If you tried to read the data areas using the standard Display Data Area (DSPDTAARA) command, the data areas would appear empty. To get at the backup information contained in each data area, perform the following procedure:

1. Get a list of your current QSAV data areas by using the Work with Objects (WRKOBJ) command to bring up all data areas whose names start with QSAV:
   
   WRKOBJ OBJ(QSAV*) OBJTYPE(*DTAARA)
   
   This command will display a working screen containing the names of all the save command data areas.
   
   
2. On the Work with Objects screen that appears, you'll see a list of data areas that start with the QSAV literal (the data areas described above). For any data area you want to view, place an 8 (Display description) in front of that entry. This will bring you to the Display Object Description (DSPOBJD) screen, which displays all the names and attributes of the particular data area you wanted to examine. You could also go directly to this screen by typing in the following DSPOBJD command with the name of your target data area, as follows:
   
   DSPOBJD OBJ(QSAVCFG) OBJTYPE(*DTAARA) »
        DETAIL(*FULL)
   
   
3. Go to the final screen on the DSPOBJD display, and it will show you recent backup information for the function this data area represents. The final screen entries show you the date and time the objects were saved; the date and time the objects were last restored; the OS/400 save command that was used; the device type, sequence number, volume name, and file label ID of the media used to save the objects; and the save format that was used (serial or parallel).

This is a quick technique for verifying when and how important backup information was saved. I encourage you to explore it to see if it fits the needs of your shop for auditing backup activity.

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