Re: How to force amanda to serialize dumper/taper
Unfortunately, eliminating (or drastically reducing) the holding disk workaround won't solve the problem in my case, since several of my larger dumps are from nonlocal disks, and the machines they are on cannot sustain a write across the network that is fast enough to keep the tape drive streaming. It would just move the problem from not being fast enough to stream from a local disk to not being fast enough to stream from remote, resulting in the same shoe-shine problem. In a few cases, where a dump contains large directories filled with many small files, even local drives cannot keep the tape drive streaming because of the directory/stat lookup times. That is, without using a holding disk to stage them. Evan On Wed, 6 Dec 2006, Jaz Singh wrote: My experience is the same. For large dumps, it was significantly slower to allow dumper and taper to work at the same time. I fixed this by limiting the holding disk to 5GB. Our holding disk is a dedicated 300GB SCSi drive. This allows the small incrementals to build up but forces the 200GB+ dumps to go straight to tape. Our tape loader (Quantum M1500) pushes at about 25MB/sec when tar-ing straight to tape. When dumping to holding disk while taping at the same time, this drops down to 10MB/sec. For a backup that normally takes 8 hours on a weekday, this is too slow. This is all local disk backup of about 800GB per weeknight and 2.5TB on Friday. Network backups will probably benefit from larger holding disk, since the network limits the transfer to holding. On Wed, 6 Dec 2006, Brian Cuttler wrote: Evan, What OS, type of tape, type of drive, HW platform ? I'm unfamiliar with a parameter to do what your asking for for good measure, what version of Amanda ? Actually, how did you determine that a drive within a changer was shoe-shining ? What else shares the bus with the tape and with the amanda work area drive(s) ? On Wed, Dec 06, 2006 at 02:34:31PM -0600, Evan Harris wrote: I'm having a problem with my tape drive shoe-shining because the holding disk can't keep up with the tape drive if it is also being written to by a dumper. Without the extra disk seek overhead of dumpers writing to the holding disk at the same time, the holding disk should be plenty fast enough to keep the tape drive streaming. Is there any way I can force amanda to serialize the dumper/taper so that they are never run concurrently? I've already set inparallel to 1, but that only affects how many dumpers can run, not the taper. I've also tried increasing the tapebufs parameter to 8000 (256MiB) to see if that would at least let the drive stay streaming for longer periods, but if it made any difference, it wasn't significant. What thresholds does the taper use to decide when the tapebufs are filled enough to start tape motion? There doesn't seem to be any docs on that, or settings to customize. I did get a suggestion that I should just leave the tape out of the drive, let the dumpers fill the holding disk and then load the tape and run amflush, but that doesn't really work when using a changer, plus the holding disk isn't large enough for the total size of all the backups, though it can fit them one-by-one. Seems like there should be a "speed" config option for holding disks like there is for network interfaces and tape drives, so that amanda could test to see if the holding disk can't handle dumpers using the holding disk at the same time a taper is running. That seems like it'd solve the problem nicely, and even seems to fit with the scheme amanda uses for network interfaces. Thanks. Evan --- Brian R Cuttler [EMAIL PROTECTED] Computer Systems Support(v) 518 486-1697 Wadsworth Center(f) 518 473-6384 NYS Department of HealthHelp Desk 518 473-0773
amrecover issue with tar and spaces
Hello, Seems to be an issue with amrecover within a DLE that contain spaces. This particular incident came to light on a volume that is being backed up via TAR. I have not tried to reproduce with Dump. As you can see from the snippets below, the output is being mangled a bit. Dropping off leading characters. If you know what the file structure is suppose to be, you can cd down into the dir by specifying it's real name. Extraction and recovery seems to work as well. I ended up just extracting the whole directory above where the issue starts. All files were recovered successfully. Just thought I'd throw it out for the developers to see. I'm a revision behind on 2.5.1p1, so please forgive me if this has been addressed. I'm using GNUtar 1.13.25, on FreeBSD 4.7 -Steffan amrecover> cd "Operating Plans" /nfs/snap/NS_Novell/VOL1/RestOfVOL1/NS_Business_Plan/"Operating Plans" amrecover> ls 2006-11-12-09-12-51 "06 Operating Plans/" 2006-11-12-09-12-51 "06 Manager Scorecard/" amrecover> cd "0506 Operating Plans" /nfs/snap/NS_Novell/VOL1/RestOfVOL1/NS_Business_Plan/"Operating Plans"/"0506 Operating Plans" amrecover> ls 2006-11-12-09-12-51 "4 Dept Ops Plan.xls" 2006-11-12-09-12-51 "3 Dept Ops Plan.xls" 2006-11-12-09-12-51 "1 Dept Ops Plan.xls" A snippet of the Index file shows everything is fine within the file. /NS_Business_Plan/Operating Plans/0506 Operating Plans/61141 Dept Ops Plan.xls /NS_Business_Plan/Operating Plans/0506 Operating Plans/61151 Dept Ops Plan.xls /NS_Business_Plan/Operating Plans/0506 Operating Plans/61161 Dept Ops Plan.xls /NS_Business_Plan/Operating Plans/0506 Operating Plans/61171 Dept Ops Plan.xls /NS_Business_Plan/Operating Plans/0506 Operating Plans/61212 Dept Ops Plan.xls
Re: How to force amanda to serialize dumper/taper
Debian testing, SDLT 110/220, Intel P4 2.8Ghz 3gig RAM. Amanda 2.5.1p1-2. The holding disk is a dedicated PATA IDE drive (master) on its own cable/bus (no slave). The tape drive is on its own SCSI bus (no other devices). Bonnie tests on the IDE drive give roughly 20MB/sec, and I have no trouble keeping the tape drive streaming using dd from the IDE drive to the tape drive. Amanda tapetest speed on the tapedrive came in right at 10MB/sec. I'm currently testing on a standalone SDLT drive first. But the final config will be the same type of drive in an ADIC changer. Evan On Wed, 6 Dec 2006, Brian Cuttler wrote: Evan, What OS, type of tape, type of drive, HW platform ? I'm unfamiliar with a parameter to do what your asking for for good measure, what version of Amanda ? Actually, how did you determine that a drive within a changer was shoe-shining ? What else shares the bus with the tape and with the amanda work area drive(s) ? On Wed, Dec 06, 2006 at 02:34:31PM -0600, Evan Harris wrote: I'm having a problem with my tape drive shoe-shining because the holding disk can't keep up with the tape drive if it is also being written to by a dumper. Without the extra disk seek overhead of dumpers writing to the holding disk at the same time, the holding disk should be plenty fast enough to keep the tape drive streaming. Is there any way I can force amanda to serialize the dumper/taper so that they are never run concurrently? I've already set inparallel to 1, but that only affects how many dumpers can run, not the taper. I've also tried increasing the tapebufs parameter to 8000 (256MiB) to see if that would at least let the drive stay streaming for longer periods, but if it made any difference, it wasn't significant. What thresholds does the taper use to decide when the tapebufs are filled enough to start tape motion? There doesn't seem to be any docs on that, or settings to customize. I did get a suggestion that I should just leave the tape out of the drive, let the dumpers fill the holding disk and then load the tape and run amflush, but that doesn't really work when using a changer, plus the holding disk isn't large enough for the total size of all the backups, though it can fit them one-by-one. Seems like there should be a "speed" config option for holding disks like there is for network interfaces and tape drives, so that amanda could test to see if the holding disk can't handle dumpers using the holding disk at the same time a taper is running. That seems like it'd solve the problem nicely, and even seems to fit with the scheme amanda uses for network interfaces. Thanks. Evan --- Brian R Cuttler [EMAIL PROTECTED] Computer Systems Support(v) 518 486-1697 Wadsworth Center(f) 518 473-6384 NYS Department of HealthHelp Desk 518 473-0773
Re: How to force amanda to serialize dumper/taper
Evan, What OS, type of tape, type of drive, HW platform ? I'm unfamiliar with a parameter to do what your asking for for good measure, what version of Amanda ? Actually, how did you determine that a drive within a changer was shoe-shining ? What else shares the bus with the tape and with the amanda work area drive(s) ? On Wed, Dec 06, 2006 at 02:34:31PM -0600, Evan Harris wrote: > > I'm having a problem with my tape drive shoe-shining because the holding > disk can't keep up with the tape drive if it is also being written to by a > dumper. Without the extra disk seek overhead of dumpers writing to the > holding disk at the same time, the holding disk should be plenty fast > enough to keep the tape drive streaming. > > Is there any way I can force amanda to serialize the dumper/taper so that > they are never run concurrently? I've already set inparallel to 1, but > that only affects how many dumpers can run, not the taper. > > I've also tried increasing the tapebufs parameter to 8000 (256MiB) to see > if that would at least let the drive stay streaming for longer periods, but > if it made any difference, it wasn't significant. What thresholds does the > taper use to decide when the tapebufs are filled enough to start tape > motion? There doesn't seem to be any docs on that, or settings to > customize. > > I did get a suggestion that I should just leave the tape out of the drive, > let the dumpers fill the holding disk and then load the tape and run > amflush, but that doesn't really work when using a changer, plus the > holding disk isn't large enough for the total size of all the backups, > though it can fit them one-by-one. > > Seems like there should be a "speed" config option for holding disks like > there is for network interfaces and tape drives, so that amanda could test > to see if the holding disk can't handle dumpers using the holding disk at > the same time a taper is running. That seems like it'd solve the problem > nicely, and even seems to fit with the scheme amanda uses for network > interfaces. > > Thanks. > > Evan --- Brian R Cuttler [EMAIL PROTECTED] Computer Systems Support(v) 518 486-1697 Wadsworth Center(f) 518 473-6384 NYS Department of HealthHelp Desk 518 473-0773
RE: Upgrade failure
> -Original Message- > > That upgrade requires a change in the security settings of > amanda, applied when its built. But I'd just as soon let > someone a lot more familiar with that do the tutoring, so > don't be afraid to chime in here folks. I did the fsck as suggested, and I went back and double checked the new security feature that were listed in the amandawiki. I'm not utilizing any of these, but still, no dice. Is there something else I could be missing (before I just switch back to the previous version)?
How to force amanda to serialize dumper/taper
I'm having a problem with my tape drive shoe-shining because the holding disk can't keep up with the tape drive if it is also being written to by a dumper. Without the extra disk seek overhead of dumpers writing to the holding disk at the same time, the holding disk should be plenty fast enough to keep the tape drive streaming. Is there any way I can force amanda to serialize the dumper/taper so that they are never run concurrently? I've already set inparallel to 1, but that only affects how many dumpers can run, not the taper. I've also tried increasing the tapebufs parameter to 8000 (256MiB) to see if that would at least let the drive stay streaming for longer periods, but if it made any difference, it wasn't significant. What thresholds does the taper use to decide when the tapebufs are filled enough to start tape motion? There doesn't seem to be any docs on that, or settings to customize. I did get a suggestion that I should just leave the tape out of the drive, let the dumpers fill the holding disk and then load the tape and run amflush, but that doesn't really work when using a changer, plus the holding disk isn't large enough for the total size of all the backups, though it can fit them one-by-one. Seems like there should be a "speed" config option for holding disks like there is for network interfaces and tape drives, so that amanda could test to see if the holding disk can't handle dumpers using the holding disk at the same time a taper is running. That seems like it'd solve the problem nicely, and even seems to fit with the scheme amanda uses for network interfaces. Thanks. Evan
Re: How to delete a run
Hello, I could use the "amrmtape" command to remove these tapes from the Amanda configuration and then label them again to be reused. Pavel Pragin Thanks I have an amanda archive run that usually uses 3 tapes but in this case had an error and used only two tapes. I would like to rerun my archive run and reuse the two old tapes, but would also like to remove any trace of the run in my /var/amanda logs. Is there any command that will do this or do I just have to do it by hand. Thanks Robert _ Robert P. McGraw, Jr. Manager, Computer System EMAIL: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Purdue University ROOM: MATH-807 Department of MathematicsPHONE: (765) 494-6055 150 N. University Street FAX: (419) 821-0540 West Lafayette, IN 47907-2067
How to delete a run
I have an amanda archive run that usually uses 3 tapes but in this case had an error and used only two tapes. I would like to rerun my archive run and reuse the two old tapes, but would also like to remove any trace of the run in my /var/amanda logs. Is there any command that will do this or do I just have to do it by hand. Thanks Robert _ Robert P. McGraw, Jr. Manager, Computer System EMAIL: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Purdue University ROOM: MATH-807 Department of MathematicsPHONE: (765) 494-6055 150 N. University Street FAX: (419) 821-0540 West Lafayette, IN 47907-2067 smime.p7s Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature
How to tell the next tape.
The following is an error message from my last amanda 2.5.1p1 run. These dumps were to tape D00021. *** A TAPE ERROR OCCURRED: [No more writable valid tape found]. Some dumps may have been left in the holding disk. Run amflush to flush them to tape. The next 3 tapes Amanda expects to use are: D00022, D00023, D00024. My amanda.conf shows the following: dumpcycle 6 runspercycle 0 tapecycle 30 runtapes 1 What program can I run that will tell me which tape will be used in the next amanda run. I know about amadmin tape but there sometimes seems to be a difference as to what amadmin and amdump use for the next tape. Thanks _ Robert P. McGraw, Jr. Manager, Computer System EMAIL: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Purdue University ROOM: MATH-807 Department of MathematicsPHONE: (765) 494-6055 150 N. University Street FAX: (419) 821-0540 West Lafayette, IN 47907-2067 smime.p7s Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature