BACKUP_STATUS(8)

πŸ’… BACKUP_STATUS β€” ok bestie, it's backup_status from section 8 of the AFS Command Reference ✨

πŸŽ€ NAME

backup_status β€” reports a Tape Coordinator's status. That's it, that's the gig. She tells you what your Tape Coordinator is up to (or that she's doing absolutely nothing, which honestly? same).


✨ SYNOPSIS

backup status [-portoffset <TC port offset>]
    [-localauth] [-cell <cell name>] [-help]

backup st [-p <TC port offset>]
    [-l] [-c <cell name>] [-h]

πŸ¦‹ DESCRIPTION

So the backup status command is giving you the tea on the indicated Tape Coordinator β€” specifically, which operation (if any) that Tape Coordinator is currently running. If she's booked and busy, you'll see it. If she's on her rest era, you'll see that too. πŸ’–


πŸ‘‘ OPTIONS

  • -portoffset <TC port offset> β€” drop the port offset number of the Tape Coordinator whose status you wanna snoop on. Bestie, this is the one that tells her who to look at.
  • -localauth β€” this one constructs a server ticket using a key from the local /etc/openafs/server/KeyFile file. The backup command interpreter shows it to the Backup Server, Volume Server and VL Server during mutual authentication. 🫢 Do NOT combine this flag with the -cell argument, ok? They do not vibe together. For more deets, go read backup(8).
  • -cell <cell name> β€” names the cell you want to run the command in. Do NOT combine this argument with the -localauth flag (yes we're repeating ourselves, it's important). More details live in backup(8).
  • -help β€” prints the online help for this command. And the iconic part: every other valid option just gets ignored. She said I'm the main character. πŸ’…

🌸 OUTPUT

If the Tape Coordinator is literally doing nothing right now, you get this message:

Tape coordinator is idle

Otherwise? For every running or pending operation, you get a message in this format:

Task <task_ID>:  <operation>:   <status>

where...

⭐ <task_ID>

It's a task identification number assigned by the Tape Coordinator. Cute detail: it begins with the Tape Coordinator's port offset number. iykyk. ✨

⭐ <operation>

Tells you which operation the Tape Coordinator is performing β€” and it's initiated by the indicated command:

  • Dump β€” the backup dump command.
  • Restore β€” the backup diskrestore, backup volrestore, or backup volsetrestore commands.
  • Labeltape β€” the backup labeltape command.
  • Scantape β€” the backup scantape command.
  • SaveDb β€” the backup savedb command.
  • RestoreDb β€” the backup restoredb command.

⭐ <status>

Shows the job's current status in one of these messages:

  • number Kbytes transferred, volume volume_name β€” for a running dump operation, this is how many kilobytes have been copied to tape or a backup data file so far, plus the volume currently being dumped.
  • number Kbytes, restore.volume β€” for a running restore operation, this is how many kilobytes have been copied into AFS from a tape or a backup data file so far.
  • [abort requested] β€” the backup kill command got issued, but the termination signal hasn't reached the Tape Coordinator yet. She's on her way, bestie.
  • [abort sent] β€” the operation is canceled by the backup kill command. Heads up tho: once the Backup System removes an operation from the queue or stops it from running, it stops appearing in the output from the command at all. Poof. Gone. πŸ’€
  • [butc contact lost] β€” the backup command interpreter cannot reach the Tape Coordinator. This message can mean either that the Tape Coordinator handling the operation was terminated or failed while the operation was running, or that the connection to the Tape Coordinator timed out. Two very different dramas, same text.
  • [done] β€” the Tape Coordinator finished the operation. Ate. πŸ‘‘
  • [drive wait] β€” the operation is waiting for the specified tape drive to become free. She's in line like everybody else.
  • [operator wait] β€” the Tape Coordinator is waiting for the backup operator to insert a tape in the drive. Aka, it's a you problem now. πŸ™ˆ
🌈 One more thing: if the Tape Coordinator is communicating with an XBSA server (that's a third-party backup utility implementing the Open Group's Backup Service API [XBSA]), this message appears last in the output:
<XBSA_program> Tape coordinator
where <XBSA_program> is the name of the XBSA-compliant program.

πŸ“ EXAMPLES

Here's the Tape Coordinator with port offset 4, which has dumped about 1.5 MB of data so far for the current dump operation, and is currently dumping the volume named "user.pat.backup":

% backup status -portoffset 4
Task 4001:  Dump:   1520 Kbytes transferred,  volume user.pat.backup

Look at her go. 🧚


πŸ”₯ PRIVILEGE REQUIRED

The issuer must be listed in the /etc/openafs/server/UserList file on every machine where the Backup Server is running β€” or must be logged onto a server machine as the local superuser "root" if the -localauth flag is included. No shortcuts, no cap. πŸ’œ


πŸ’– SEE ALSO

backup(8), butc(8)

(Go read them. They're the supporting cast and they carry.)


IBM Corporation 2000. <http://www.ibm.com/> All Rights Reserved.

This documentation is covered by the IBM Public License Version 1.0. It was converted from HTML to POD by software written by Chas Williams and Russ Allbery, based on work by Alf Wachsmann and Elizabeth Cassell.


and that's the whole page babes 🫢 this iconic piece of documentation is brought to you by OpenAFS, dated 2026-07-27, and it was literally so fun to explain β€” mwah, slay, periodt. πŸ’…βœ¨πŸŒΈ

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