IBM i Cloud Backup to AZURE BLOB Storage (Using Dialog)

How many times have I heard "How can I backup my IBM i / AS/400 to the cloud?". Today we have IBM Cloud Power Virtual Servers (Power VS) where you can create your LPAR with IBM i/AIX/Linux on Power , and the solution "by the book" is to use IBM Cloud Object Storage (ICOS) + BRMS + ICC . Unfortunately "IBM Cloud Storage Solutions for i" (5733-ICC) does not support Azure Cloud yet.

On previous projects I published scripts to backup IBM i to "IBM Cloud Object Storage", "WASABI" and "OneDrive".

This IBM i PASE-BASH script uses NodeJS and "azure-storage-cmd" tool https://www.npmjs.com/package/azure-storage-cmd I've also included dialog commmand (cdialog). You need to compile cdialog in order to use the script. Dialog brings a Linux-like look&feel to PASE.

What can the script do?

• Creates a *SAVF for each library and SAVSECDTA when selecting "Save All Libraries"
• Compress *SAVF with 7zip
• Generates a CSV with *SAVF content for future references
• Allow to select the amount of simultaenous processes
• Uploads backup or individual files to your Azure BLOB container

Pre-Reqs

• You need to install YUM on your systems, I recommmend using Access Client Solution, and then install this tools:

nodejs12 npm readline git p7zip

• Set your PATH:

PATH=$PATH:/QOpenSys/pkgs/bin:/QOpenSys/pkgs/lib/nodejs/bin export PATH

• Create a symbolic link for nodejs12

ln -s /QOpenSys/pkgs/lib/nodejs12/bin/node /usr/bin/node

• Your system needs to reach the Internet.
• Setup SSH on your System (5733-SC1)
• You need a container in Azure Storage (Blobl). Try creating a free account https://azure.microsoft.com/
• You need to download the tool azure-storage-cmd

npm install -g azure-storage-cmd

...and configure properly:

blob-cmd add-account [alias]

You need to download the .sh to some directory on your IFS, something like "/IBMiCloudBackup/" , change permissions with chmod +x *.sh

Now you just need to adjust values in mnuaz_const.sh to reflect your configuration and run mnuaz.sh

ATTENTION: Don't use a trailing slash at the end of directions and PATHs !!!

When saving all libraries to Azure you can monitor backup using tail pointing to your log (from other SSH session):

tail -f /backup2cloud/BAK20220206-095201.log

Please, submit your comments and questions to [email protected]

NOTE:

I have found some issues with blob-cmd tool. Probably will switch to cURL on next release