OpenText Server Backup
Agent for IBM i
Version 9.03.6614
Release Notes, July 15, 2026
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Contents
1	Overview
1.1	Release History
1.2	Supported Platforms
2	NEW FEATURES
2.1	New Feature in Version 9.03
2.2	New Features in Version 9.00
3	INSTALLATION NOTES
3.1	Installation Requirements
3.2	Licensing
3.3	Install/Upgrade
4	FIXES, limitations and KNOWN ISSUES
4.1	Fixes
4.2	Limitations
4.3	Known Issues
5	PRODUCT SUPPORT
5.1	Technical Support
5.2	Product Updates
5.3	Documentation
______________________________________________________________________
1	Overview
This document contains release notes for IBM i Agent version 9.03.
This Agent version is supported with Director version 8.73, 8.72 and 8.56.
1.1	Release History
Version 9.03.6614, July 15, 2026
Version 9.02.2936, August 2, 2023
Version 9.00.2307, January 10, 2022
1.2	Supported Platforms
This version of the Agent is supported on:
•	IBM i V7R6
•	IBM i V7R5
•	IBM i V7R4 ^1
•	IBM i V7R3 ^2

^1 On IBM i V7R4, the following PTFs are required before you can install IBM i Agent 9.03 or upgrade the agent to version 9.03:
•	SI72642 (or a superseding PTF)
•	SI78307 (or a superseding PTF)
^2 On IBM i V7R3, the following PTF is required before you can install IBM i Agent 9.03 or upgrade the agent to version 9.03:
•	SI75933 (or a superseding PTF)

We highly recommend applying the latest cumulative and group PTFs. We also recommend applying the following PTFs or superseding PTFs which might affect the system performance in some LPAR configurations:
•	R730 SI76948  2132
•	R740 SI76949  2125
2	NEW FEATURES 
2.1	New Feature in Version 9.03
Specify AGENT user profile password during installation
You can now specify a password for the AGENT user profile when installing IBM i Agent 9.03. This helps ensure that the password meets the system’s password requirements. The AGENT user profile is created automatically during installation, and is used to manage agent configuration and backup/restore tasks.
2.2	New Features in Version 9.00
TLS certificate pinning for agent-vault communication
TLS certificate pinning for agent-vault communication is a new security feature that is available beginning with IBM i Agent 9.00 and Director version 8.60 vaults.
When an IBM i agent tries to connect to a vault where certificate pinning is enabled, it checks whether the public key of the vault certificate is the same as when the agent previously connected to the vault (e.g., to run a backup or restore). If the public key of the vault certificate is different, the agent reports a certificate failure in a log file or in the terminal and will not connect to the vault unless you re-pin the certificate.
If the vault certificate change was expected, you can re-pin the vault certificate using a new “Re-pin Vault Certificate” option in the Agent Configuration menu. Backups and restores can then continue.
Computer name in vault registrations
When adding a vault configuration for an agent, you can now specify a computer name to use for the vault registration. You can now register an agent multiple times to the same vault by specifying different computer names. 
Security enhancements
Security has been improved in this IBM i Agent version.
To protect critical agent files, *PUBLIC access to files in the agent installation directory is now restricted. Low-privilege users can no longer access the agent menu. We highly recommend using the AGENT user profile created by agent installer to manage the agent configuration and backup/restore tasks. To grant agent operation access to specific users who do not have *ALLOBJ special authority, a system administrator can grant them private authority or add them to groups with required authority.
After re-registering an IBM i Agent to a vault, to send email notifications using an SMTP server with credentials, you must enter the SMTP password. 
After an upgrade to Agent 9.00, user profiles without *ALLOBJ special authority might lose all or part of access to the agent files. System admin will need to grant those user profiles private authorities to files in agent installed directory if necessary. For more information, see the IBM i Agent User Guide.
Discontinued options and functionality
The Over the Wire Encryption option no longer appears when you add or change a vault configuration. Backup data is always encrypted when it is sent to the vault.
The legacy Auto Job Creation tool has been removed from IBM i Agent 9.00.
To ensure that files are fully backed up, intra-file deferring is disabled in IBM i Agent 9.00. When deferring is enabled for a job, after the specified number of minutes, the agent finishes backing up the file that is currently being backed up but will not back up any more files.
To ensure that system information is fully backed up, *SYS job backups are never deferred.
When you restore a physical file object, all members of the file are restored. To reflect this behavior, on the Run Restore screen for an Object (*OBJ) job restore, the File member option is no longer available in the Include objects and Exclude objects fields. 
3	INSTALLATION NOTES
3.1	Installation Requirements
Before installing the Agent, we recommended installing the latest cumulative, hyper and group PTFs (Program Temporary Fixes) from IBM.
3.2	Licensing
The Agent is installed with a 30-day trial license. The Agent has full functionality for the 30-day trial period. During this time, obtain a full license code from your service provider and enter it in the Work with License screen.
3.3	Install/Upgrade
The IBM i Agent is provided in a .zip file (ibmiagent-9.03.6614.zip) or as an iso file (ibm_i_agent_9_03.iso).
On IBM i V7R5, you can upgrade the agent from version 9.02 or 9.00 to version 9.03. On IBM i V7R4, you can upgrade the agent from version 9.02, 9.00 or 7.5x to version 9.03. On IBM i V7R3, you can upgrade the agent from version 9.02, 9.00, 7.5x or 7.20 to version 9.03. 
If you want to upgrade a system to IBM i V7R6, we recommend that you upgrade the IBM i Agent to version 9.03 before you upgrade the IBM i version.
After an upgrade, user profiles without *ALLOBJ special authority might lose all or part of access to the agent files. If required, a system administrator can grant user profiles private authorities to files in the agent installed directory. 
For information about installing or upgrading the Agent, see the IBM i Agent User Guide.
4	FIXES, limitations and KNOWN ISSUES
4.1	Fixes
4.1.1	Fixes in Version 9.03
Agent upgrades no longer fail with the following message: Password value not valid. Reason code 2 (2455487)
When the IBM i Agent is installed on a system where PTF SI80445 is applied, you can now change a scheduled entry using the Work with Schedule screen. (2456202)
An issue in IBM i Agent 9.02 has been fixed so that, if a backup job has a pre-backup command, the Agent Backup Notification email indicates whether the pre-backup command completed successfully. (5322899)
An issue in IBM i Agent 9.02 has been fixed so that a job’s “last modified” date and time is not updated each time the job runs. (5460231)
4.1.2	Fixes in Version 9.02
In an IFS restore where the root folder is specified and the Recursive option is set to *YES, object authorities for subfolders are now restored correctly. (EV-86666)
A Current OS version is higher than supported warning message no longer appears in the backup log for a job on IBM i V7R5. IBM i Agent 9.00 was supported on IBM i V7R5 but a warning message appeared in the backup log for jobs on this platform. (EV-88144)
Job synchronizations now run successfully. With previous agent versions, job synchronizations sometimes failed with an "Application error" message. (EV-97284)
4.1.3	Fixes in Version 9.00
*OBJ backups with extremely large objects no longer fail with the following error: Timeout occurred on mutex condition wait (EV-70687)
In rare situations after a backup or restore is stopped and the shared memory or semaphore used by the process is not cleared properly, the next backup or restore does not hang. Instead, the backup or restore fails and one or more of the following messages appears in the log: 
ID | Message
7355 | set semaphore value failed, key=<sem_key>, semid=<sem_id>, err=<errorCode>
7357 | fail to create shared memory, key=<shm_key>, err=<errorCode>
7358 | failed to allocate shared memory, key=<shm_key>, shmid=<shm_id>, err=<errorCode>
7299 | fail to lock semaphore, semid=<sem_id>, err=<errorCode>
7356 | fail to release semaphore, semid=<sem_id>, err=<errorCode>
If this occurs, please contact Support for assistance. (EV-69356)
When adding a vault configuration for an agent, you can now specify a computer name to use for the vault registration. You can now register an agent multiple times to the same vault by specifying different computer names. Vault verifications no longer fail if the system or host name has changed (e.g., after a re-registration). (EV-71252, EV-24957)
If the Agent loses connection to the vault during a backup, the Agent now waits longer to reconnect to the vault and continue the backup. (EV-42225)
During an IFS backup where the Preserve hard links option is enabled, the agent no longer scans excluded file systems and causes significant delays (EV-42548, EV-34124)
Data issues no longer occur due to deferring backups within files. Backups can only be deferred between files. (EV-28102)
Backup logs are now complete for IFS jobs. (EV-33238) 
When running MIMIX, you can specify that MIMIX replication should not be triggered by a backup. (EV-38584) 
Backups finish successfully and do not end abruptly when saving some small objects. (EV-41851, EV-43522)
The IBM i Agent can now send email notifications using TLS 1.2 and can authenticate with email services such as Microsoft Office 365 and Google Gmail. You can specify an SMTP port for sending email notifications in the Agent’s command line interface. (EV-25002, EV-24902)
4.2	Limitations
If a library is being journaled, journaling does not start automatically after a restore and a warning appears in the restore log. You must start journaling a library manually after a restore. Journaling does start automatically after a restore for PFs and other objects that are being journaled.
The IBM i Agent does not support the QNTC, QNetWare or QFileSvr.400 file systems. These file systems are automatically excluded from IFS backup jobs. The dev folder is also excluded from IFS backup jobs, to avoid being overwritten during a disaster recovery. To preserve files in the dev folder, copy the files to other folders.
If you have customized *PGM, *SRVPGM or *BNDDIR objects in the QSYS library, they are not backed up in *SYS or *IBM backup jobs. We highly recommend creating a dedicated job to back up and restore customized objects in the QSYS library. Alternatively, create your own SAVSYS tape or DVD image and recover from the SAVSYS image in a disaster recovery.
4.3	Known Issues
When you synchronize or restore data from a vault version earlier than Director 8.30, RPC-E-AUTHERROR authentication errors sometimes appear in the log. This problem does not occur when the Agent is used with Director version 8.30 or later. (EV-30718)
PTF status files QUSRSYS/QAPZ* are special operating system objects that cannot be overwritten. For this reason, they are excluded from *ALLUSR and *SYS backups, and from QUSRSYS library backups. To backup the PTF status files, you must back them up to a save file and include the save file in an *ALLUSR backup job. When you restore the PTF status files (most likely in a disaster recovery scenario),  you must delete any existing QUSRSYS/QAPZ* files first, and then restore them from the save file. (32667)
If you create a job to back up document folders /QDLS only, no files will be saved. /QDLS is saved by default when you do an IFS root backup. If you want to back up /QDLS individually, you can set up a *IFS type job INCLUDE(('/QDL*')). (32414)
If you try to restore a multiple member file and exclude one or more members, the entire file is not restored. The same situation applies to spool files. (32664)
Do not use the IBM Advanced Scheduler for submitting Agent Jobs. The Agent uses the standard job scheduler, which requires multi-threading. The IBM Advanced Scheduler uses the RCLRSC command, which is not compatible with multi-threaded applications. (10844/5865)
5	PRODUCT SUPPORT
5.1	Technical Support
Contact information for your provider is available from your provider.
5.2	Product Updates
Product updates are available from your service provider.
5.3	Documentation
The following documentation is available for the Agent:
•	Agent for IBM i User Guide
•	Agent for IBM i release notes (this document)