Re: Zmanda acquired from Carbonite by BETSOL

[George Kelbley]

Interesting.  My Department also purchased the Enterprise Zmanda license 
to get NDMP support.  However our lastest upgrade on the file server 
changed the NDMP requirements and Zmanda can no longer use it.  I've 
switched to have Zmanda use NFS, which I could do with regular open 
source Amanda.  So we will probably not be renewing our "Enterprise" 
license.


Oure filer vendor checked with Zmanda and was told there were no plans 
modify Zmanda Enterprise to work with the new filer OS.



On 05/08/2018 11:35 AM, Jean-Francois Malouin wrote:

Just my 2cents.

I've been aware of that fact for a while as the institution I work for
has bought in the past year an Amanda Enterprise license from
Carbonite/Zmanda for a proprietary filer/NAS that needs NDMP for backups
and back in late February I received a notice from a Carbonite sales rep
about BETSOL acquiring them.

I'm a bit pessimistic about the whole deal and considering my options
now: I have a case support that I opened before the deal was announced
in February and for weeks I have been waiting for updates, asking for
any updates, every week, to no avail. Just an automatic reply about
support looking into the issue.  It's been more than 2 months now.

The sales rep though assures me that (his words):
"Betsol is absolutely honoring the licensing and support subscriptions
purchased from Zmanda-Carbonite that are still active".

just saying,
jf


* Chris Hoogendyk  [20180508 13:15]:

My Google alert on Zmanda woke up last night for the first time in a long time 
and sent me this:

BETSOL Completes the Acquisition of *Zmanda* Enterprise Backup




Chicago Evening Post
“We are excited to add *Zmanda* to the BETSOL product family,” said Ashok 
Reddy, CEO of BETSOL.
“With the Rebit acquisition, we are gaining good traction in consumer and 
SMB backup market.
Now, with *Zmanda*, our enterprise customers have award-winning reliable 
product lines with
best-in-class ...


I assume we take them at their word that it will be a seamless
transition. There is supposed to be a new Zmanda website in the
works. My sense was that it had become stale under Carbonite. For
example, the blogs show 2013 as the latest entry. I've also had some
trouble editing the wiki at multiple times over the last couple of
years.

Who is still with Zmanda in the core team and management? Are they
going to be adding anyone? Or getting help from BETSOL?

Just wondering if anyone has any inside information they want to
share – realizing it is still early in the game.

--
---

Chris Hoogendyk

-
O__   Systems Administrator
   c/ /'_ --- Biology & Geosciences Departments
  (*) \(*) -- 315 Morrill Science Center
~~ - University of Massachusetts, Amherst



---

Erdös 4

2.5.2p1 failing

[George Kelbley]

Recently my amanda server has begun failing during amdump without any 
apparent reason.  I was using straight debian etch and amanda packages, 
since the problem appeared, I build from source and I'm still getting 
the same thing.  Amcheck runs fine, amdump will start normally, the 
clients start sending in the estimates, and about 3/4's of the time, the 
server processes just die.  The end of the amdump log file just has 
estimate info at the end, no errors.

Any suggestions on where to look would be greatly appreciated.
--
George Kelbley  System Support Group
Computer Science Department University of New Mexico
505-277-6502Fax: 505-277-6927

strange amrecover behavior

[George Kelbley]

I am seeing a real strange thing happen when running amrecover on amanda 
2.5.1p1 installed on a debian etch server (installed from packages).


I need to completely restore all the directories in one dle, (in other 
words a full restore ) but amrecover is telling me it only needs last 
night's tape which only has an incremental, its not prompting for the 
most recent level 0 at all.  I can work around it manually, but 
amrecover has always worked "normally" for me in the past.


If anyone has any ideas . . .


--
George Kelbley  System Support Group
Computer Science Department University of New Mexico
505-277-6502Fax: 505-277-6927

Error in building 2.5.0p2 on Solaris 9

[George]

Greetings all;

I'm attempting to compile and install amanda-2.5.0p2 on a 2-way Sunfire
V210 running Solaris 9 w/ 2gb RAM. Compiler is gcc, v3.4.2, linker is
Sun's supplied /usr/ccs/bin/ld. Worthy of note is that this same
package configured and compiled flawlessly on a 2-way Dell 1850 server
running RHES 3.0.

Here are my configure parameters:

./configure --prefix=/usr/local/prdamanda --with-index-server=amanda2
--with-user=prdamanda --with-group=disk --with-config=prodbackup
--with-tmpdir=/tmp/prdamanda --with-gnutar=/usr/local/bin/tar


The configure runs to completion with no warnings or errors save one,
GNUplot not being installed. No biggie there. The "make" produces the
following warnings as it proceeds through the building the code:

[...]

../common-src/amanda-int.h:339:1: warning: "UINT8_MAX" redefined
In file included from /usr/local/lib/gcc/sparc-sun-solaris2.9/3.4.2/include/syslimits.h:41,

from /usr/local/lib/gcc/sparc-sun-solaris2.9/3.4.2/include/limits.h:11,

from ../common-src/amanda.h:148,
 from uparse.y:32:
/usr/include/sys/int_limits.h:79:1: warning: this is the location of the previous definition
In file included from ../common-src/amanda.h:245,
 from uparse.y:32:
../common-src/amanda-int.h:340:1: warning: "UINT16_MAX" redefined
In file included from /usr/local/lib/gcc/sparc-sun-solaris2.9/3.4.2/include/syslimits.h:41,

from /usr/local/lib/gcc/sparc-sun-solaris2.9/3.4.2/include/limits.h:11,

from ../common-src/amanda.h:148,
 from uparse.y:32:
/usr/include/sys/int_limits.h:80:1: warning: this is the location of the previous definition
In file included from ../common-src/amanda.h:245,
 from uparse.y:32:
../common-src/amanda-int.h:342:1: warning: "UINT64_MAX" redefined
In file included from /usr/local/lib/gcc/sparc-sun-solaris2.9/3.4.2/include/syslimits.h:41,

from /usr/local/lib/gcc/sparc-sun-solaris2.9/3.4.2/include/limits.h:11,

from ../common-src/amanda.h:148,
 from uparse.y:32:

[...]

=
Despite the warnings, everything goes smoothly until the build process
reaches the building the "man" pages section, when it errors out
completely:

[...]

creating amrecover
Making all in man
/usr/local/libxslt/sparcv9/bin/xsltproc --path ./xslt/ --xinclude
--stringparam latex.imagebasedir "amanda.conf.5/" --stringparam
noreference 1 --output xml-source/amanda.conf.5.proc.xml
./xslt/expand-sambadoc.xsl xml-source/amanda.conf.5.xml
/usr/local/libxslt/sparcv9/bin/xsltproc --path ./xslt/ --output amanda.conf.5 man.xsl xml-source/amanda.conf.5.proc.xml
warning: failed to load external entity "http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current/manpages/docbook.xsl"
compilation error: file ./xslt//man.xsl line 8 element import
xsl:import : unable to load http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current/manpages/docbook.xsl
*** Error code 5
make: Fatal error: Command failed for target `amanda.conf.5'
Current working directory /export/home/gkofoed/amanda-2.5.0p2/man
*** Error code 1
make: Fatal error: Command failed for target `all-recursive' 

==

Not sure where to go from here, I've never seen this when building
amanda from source before. If I've missed supplying any necessary
information to help trouble-shoot, please let me know. Any
help/guidance appreciated. Thanks.

George

Re: Dump results missing from report?

[George]

On 4/16/06, stan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Sun, Apr 16, 2006 at 03:44:32PM -0400, George wrote:> I recently set up an amanda (2.4.3-4) server servicing two amanda clients,
> all running RHES 3.0 Linux. For both clients, I chose to use GNU Tar (> 1.13.25) to backup partitions vice dump. Everything works quite well, but> I'm used to seeing a dump summary in the emailed report from other amanda
> environments I've set up. The reports I'm getting from the amanda server> lack the detailed dump summary showing all the hosts:partitions, compression> stats, etc. Is this symptomatic of this particular build of amanda (I've
> been using 2.4.2 exclusively in the past). If not, is there a setting I've> missed somewhere? Any and all help appreciated. Thanks.Are you refering to the section of the report that starts with:
DUMP SUMMARY: ?If so I've always gotten lines in that for clients backed up with Gnu tar.--U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote - Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong Terror- New York Times 9/3/1967

 
Hi Stan;
 
Yes, thats the section of the report to which I'm referring. Here's an example of what I'm getting automatically after the backups finish:
 
 
 
These dumps were to tape Backup-12.The next tape Amanda expects to use is: a new tape.STATISTICS:  Total   Full  Daily          
Estimate Time (hrs:min)    0:00Run Time (hrs:min) 0:01Dump Time (hrs:min)    0:01   0:01   0:00Output Size (meg)   9.8    8.4    1.4Original Size (meg)    33.5   
29.1    4.4Avg Compressed Size (%)    29.2   28.8   31.9   (level:#disks ...)Filesystems Dumped    7  2  5   (1:5)Avg Dump Rate (k/s)   156.5  140.4  501.1 

  

Dump results missing from report?

[George]

I recently set up an amanda (2.4.3-4) server servicing two amanda clients, all running RHES 3.0 Linux. For both clients, I chose to use GNU Tar (1.13.25) to backup partitions vice dump. Everything works quite well, but I'm used to seeing a dump summary in the emailed report from other amanda environments I've set up. The reports I'm getting from the amanda server lack the detailed dump summary showing all the hosts:partitions, compression stats, etc. Is this symptomatic of this particular build of amanda (I've been using 
2.4.2 exclusively in the past). If not, is there a setting I've missed somewhere? Any and all help appreciated. Thanks.
 
George

Re: AW: Question: does this DLT Drive work?

[George Kelbley]

I'm using debian stable, and when my amanda server boots up my tape 
drive is detected as /dev/st0 (and /dev/nst0).  Do you still have the 
old DAT drive connected?  Does the scsi interface detect the hardware? 
Should be mesages in dmesg.


Sebastian Koesters wrote:

Hi

Now i build in the drive but i do not know whats his device name is?!

My old DAT-Drive was nst0 but this does nt work with the DLT!?

-Ursprüngliche Nachricht-
Von: George Kelbley [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 9. Februar 2006 16:17

An: Sebastian Koesters
Betreff: Re: Question: does this DLT Drive work?

I use this in an Overland Data Loaderexpress, and it works fine.

I got the tape type off the amanda.org pages.

In my case the tape library has an interface to enable or disable 
compression.  If you have a standalone tape drive I'm not sure how you 
do it.


this the tape type I'm using :

define tapetype SDLT320 {
 comment "SDLT 320 drive in OverLand Storage Neo 2000 Library"
 length 154753 mbytes
 filemark 28 kbytes
 speed 2349 kps
}


Sebastian Koesters wrote:


Quantum DLT V4 320 U2W (160GB uncompressed - 320GB compressed)

Does this drive work good with amanda?

How do i have to set it up in amanda.conf?

How do i activate the compression of the drive to get the full 230GB?

Thanks for the Help!

Regards Sebastian







--
George Kelbley  System Support Group
Computer Science Department University of New Mexico
505-277-6502Fax: 505-277-6927

Re: question about chg-scsi config

[George Kelbley]

When we got our first changer I actually did some timing tests to get a 
rough idea on how long "longest case" rewind-eject-load-calibrate (I'm 
using DLT) took.  Then I starting shaving the time down until I saw 
problems and then bumped the time back up.


Jon LaBadie wrote:

On Tue, Nov 15, 2005 at 02:50:17PM +, Rodrigo Ventura wrote:


What exactlty means the "sleep" configuration parameter in the
changer.conf file? I notice some lag in the tape commands (it seems
the tape is doing nothing, and the amtape is just sleeping...), so
maybe the default value of 90 is too conservative for my system. How
can I safely tune it?



Honestly, the only way is reduce it and see if it causes problems.

If I were to try and "measure" what might be needed, I'd position
a tape about 'half unwound' (fun to try and figure that out on
serpentine tape formats :)  Then I'd type in a rewind with mt,
and while it was rewinding, but before you get a shell prompt,
enter another tape command, say a dd for a gigabyte to /dev/null.
But don't hit the enter key on the dd command until you see the
prompt return from the mt command.  Probably when the prompt
appears, the tape will actually still be rewinding.  However,
immediately upon seeing the prompt hit the return key and notice
how long it takes the tape to begin moving forward.

Some drivers would give an error to status requests during this 
period between the apparent command completion and the actual

"drive ready" condition.  This is the delay for which chg-scsi
is trying to accomodate.  If dd receives an error, keep repeating
the dd command until it does work.

As a fudge factor, I'd double your measured delay.



--
George Kelbley  System Support Group
Computer Science Department University of New Mexico
505-277-6502Fax: 505-277-6927

2.5.5 question

[George Kelbley]

I just upgraded from 2.4.4p3-2 to 2.5.0 (I need to use calsize to handle 
a Network Appliance filer).  My short test backup worked fine, but when
I ran my usual backup last night, amanda skipped more than half my DLE's 
because it thought it didn't have room on the tape.
It failed for some of the DLE's that use calcsize but also for my old 
"normal" tar based DLE's, and what's more, a bunch of the skipped 
entries are tiny, like 1KB.


I have a SDLT320 tape drive and amanda reports only 37% of the tape 
used, so it appears that something is really wrong.


I used my old amanda.conf with the addition of creating a new dumptype 
to use calcsize as the only change.


I'm gonna go through the debug files in detail next.

If anyone has any ideas I'd sure like to hear them.

thanks




--
George Kelbley  System Support Group
Computer Science Department University of New Mexico
505-277-6502Fax: 505-277-6927

Re: estimates

[George Kelbley]

Also, its good to make sure your amanda server isn't using automounting.
Stefan G. Weichinger wrote:
Hi, Rich,
on Mittwoch, 13. April 2005 at 22:25 you wrote to amanda-users:
RH> My question is, is there any way of either a) parallelizing the
RH> estimates so they get done in a somewhat timely fashion, or b) ignoring
RH> the estimates entirely and just get to work doing backups, making
RH> whatever assumptons are necessary?
AMANDA 2.4.5 will make you happy (again):
This release brings so-called server-estimates which reduce
estimate-times radically.
2.4.5 is soon to come, snapshots of 2.4.5b1 are already available and
working stable.
--
George Kelbley  System Support Group
Computer Science Department University of New Mexico
505-277-6502Fax: 505-277-6927

calc size question

[George Kelbley]

Is there any documentation on how to implement the use of the "calc" or 
"server" options for estimates in 2.5?  I don't see anything in the 
examples.
--
George Kelbley		 	System Support Group	
Computer Science Department	University of New Mexico
505-277-6502			Fax: 505-277-6927

2.5 question

[George Kelbley]

Is there any documentation on how to implement the use of the "calc" or 
"server" options for estimates in 2.5?  I don't see anything in the 
examples.
--
George Kelbley		 	System Support Group	
Computer Science Department	University of New Mexico
505-277-6502			Fax: 505-277-6927

Re: Looking for tape drive suggestions

[George Kelbley]

We recently upgraded from DLT8000.  We choose SDLT320 and its working 
great.  The primary reason for us was read compatability with our older 
archive tapes, and the cost was somewhat lower.  Since we've only had 
the new changer for a couple of months, we can't attest to its 
reliability, but this is our third OverlandData unit and we've had very 
few problems.

Joshua Baker-LePain wrote:
On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 at 11:02am, Mike Brodbelt wrote

So, does anyone have any suggestions, good (or bad) experiences, or
other advice? Reliability is obviously by far the most important
thing... I'm also curious as to whether people favour internal or
external drives?

I have both AIT and AIT3 drives here, and they are quite nice.  While it's 
true that AIT is a Sony standard, they have a very long roadmap for it 
(through AIT6 IIRC), and it's not like Sony is going away any time soon.

That being said, these days I may well lean towards LTO.  I've heard very 
good things about the hardware compression in LTO drives.

Regarding external vs. internal, I strongly prefer external.  Tape drives 
can get hot.

--
George Kelbley  System Support Group
Computer Science Department University of New Mexico
505-277-6502Fax: 505-277-6927

remote client failures

[George Kelbley]

I am having problems backing up a client in different building (on a 
different subnet).  The strange thing is this worked for over a year and 
suddenly started failing.  It does not appear to be an acl or firewall 
issues, because sometimes it will work.  I set up a separate config just 
for this host so I could test, and find that I can kick of amdump, it 
appears to start on the client (I get the debug files), but at some 
point it dies and I get an amandad debug with the following that the end:
amandad: time 126.413: dgram_recv: timeout after 10 seconds
amandad: time 126.413: waiting for ack: timeout, retrying
amandad: time 136.413: dgram_recv: timeout after 10 seconds
amandad: time 136.413: waiting for ack: timeout, retrying
amandad: time 146.413: dgram_recv: timeout after 10 seconds
amandad: time 146.413: waiting for ack: timeout, retrying
amandad: time 156.413: dgram_recv: timeout after 10 seconds
amandad: time 156.413: waiting for ack: timeout, retrying
amandad: time 166.413: dgram_recv: timeout after 10 seconds
amandad: time 166.413: waiting for ack: timeout, giving up!
amandad: time 166.413: pid 6926 finish time Wed Sep 22 10:04:29 2004

If I stop the processes on the server, and run amcleanup, and restart 
amdump, with _no_ changes to anything, the dump will complete normally, 
most of the time.  Other times it will fail with the same type of output 
in the debug file and I'll have to repeat.

The client and server are running linux, (debian testing) amanda 2.4.4.p3.
Needless to say, the intermittancy of this making troubleshooting 
difficult.

The clients on the same subnet as the server back up normally.
--
George Kelbley  System Support Group
Computer Science Department University of New Mexico
505-277-6502Fax: 505-277-6927

Re: How exactly does Amanda get access to files?

[George Kelbley]

My experience is that this is much slower than directly to the amanda 
server, but I guess there would be a lot of variable from site to site.

Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:
On Mon, 20 Sep 2004, Ivan Petrovich wrote:
Thanks for the information. You folks answered my question about how
amanda has access to all files as root, and I believe you are right
about root squash. I will look at the NFS export to try to fix the
problem.

Alternatively, you can back up the files on the NFS server instead of on the
client.
Gr{oetje,eeting}s,
Geert
--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
-- Linus Torvalds
--
George Kelbley  System Support Group
Computer Science Department University of New Mexico
505-277-6502Fax: 505-277-6927

RE: Problem backing up just a few machines

[Henson, George Mr JMLFDC]

Title: RE: Problem backing up just a few machines






> > planner: time 30.790: error result for host logfun02 disk 
> > /: Request to  logfun02 timed out.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > If I am reading the above messages correctly the timeout is 
> > happening well within the etimeout window. And the 30 second time 
> > frame almost sounds like a network timeout threshold
> 
> That's strange indeed.
> If there isn't a sendsize.XXX.debug file, are there other files.
> Is there at least one or more amandad..debug on the client
> in directory /tmp/amanda?


I have 4 files. three amandad and one selfcheck (I have cron fire 
amcheck && amdump)


Below are the files in client:/tmp/amanda


amandad.20040527020003.debug amandad.20040527020502.debug
amandad.20040527020003000.debug  selfcheck.20040527020004.debug

RE: Problem backing up just a few machines

[Henson, George Mr JMLFDC]

Title: RE: Problem backing up just a few machines






> Henson, George Mr JMLFDC wrote:
> 
> > logfun02   / lev 0 FAILED [Request to logfun02 timed out.]
> > 
> > Then the next day I had two hosts with the same error. In 
> > trying to fix the issue I found if I removed the curinfo directories
> > for these two hosts, the backups would run the next time amdump was
> > called. It is always the same two hosts which fail like this.
> > 
> > After reviewing the log files, I see the client does not 
> > report it received the sendsize service request.
> 
> Increase etimeout.  (probably)


Currently etimeout is 300. Should this be increased


> > Why does deleting the curinfo directories "correct" the problem?
> 
> In that case amanda thinks that DLE is completely new, and schedules
> a level 0.  It does not bother to estimate how much data incremental
> level 1 would be.
> The next day(s) the planner needs estimates for the level 0, the last 
> incremental level, and the lastincr+1. Doing 2 or 3 estimates for each
> DLE on that host takes longer than only level 0...


One part of the mystery solved. 


> Just speculating of course.  Seeing logfiles 
> (sendsize.XXX.debug on the 
> client, and amdump.X on the server) and config files would help.


There is no sendsize.XXX.debug log. This is one of things making me thing the server
can/does not send a send size request. :(


amdump log:



planner: time 0.414: setting up estimates for logfun02:/
logfun02:/ overdue 13 days for level 0
setup_estimate: logfun02:/: command 0, options:
    last_level 1 next_level0 -13 level_days 2
    getting estimates 0 (28420) 1 (583) -1 (-1)





planner: time 30.790: error result for host logfun02 disk /: Request to logfun02 timed out.





If I am reading the above messages correctly the timeout is happening well within
the etimeout window. And the 30 second time frame almost sounds like a network
timeout threshold

Problem backing up just a few machines

[Henson, George Mr JMLFDC]

Title: Problem backing up just a few machines





Hello all,


We currently have about 10 HP-UX 11 and 11i machines in our Amanda setup.
Our server is HP-UX 11i with Amanda version 2.4.4 installed on all clients
and server.


I have two systems (HP-UX 11) that give me issue about once a week. When I
first added them to the disklist file they would backup correctly. Then
about a week later one systems backups would fail with:


logfun02   / lev 0 FAILED [Request to logfun02 timed out.]


Then the next day I had two hosts with the same error. In trying to fix the
issue I found if I removed the curinfo directories for these two hosts, the
backups would run the next time amdump was called. It is always the same two
hosts which fail like this.


After reviewing the log files, I see the client does not report it received 
the sendsize service request. 


Any ideas? Any way I can get more debugging information? Should my next step
be to watch the network to make sure the server is indeed seeing the request?
Why does deleting the curinfo directories "correct" the problem?


Thank you
George

server lookup failing

[George Kelbley]

After changing the IP on my amanda server, many of my clients fail 
amcheck with "host name lookup fail".  The server is resolved via dns 
(not in /etc/hosts), running "host" on the clients returns the proper 
IP.  Re-booting the client fixes the problem, but I'd rather not reboot 
all my clients.
So, does amanda cache the server IP somewhere that I can flush?  I been 
looking around but have't found anything.

thanks

--
George Kelbley  System Support Group
Computer Science Department University of New Mexico
505-277-6502Fax: 505-277-6927

RE: tapes looking their Amanda labels

[Henson, George Mr JMLFDC]

Title: RE: tapes looking their Amanda labels





> On Fri, Jan 16, 2004 at 01:15:19PM -0500, Henson, George Mr 
> JMLFDC wrote:
> > > On Fri, Jan 16, 2004 at 09:33:37AM -0500, Henson, George Mr 
> > > JMLFDC wrote:
> > > > All,
> > > > 
> > > > I have a HP Sure Store E Silo (20 slots/2 LTO Gen 1 Drives) 
> > > connected to my HP/UX 11i server with amanda-2.4.4 installed. 
> > > I wrote an Amanda label to every tape in the silo. Last night 
> > > my backup asked for Tape Daily12. The changer (mtx) 
> > > loaded the tape (which I had labeled Daily12), but the 
> > > tape had no Amanda label on it.
> > > 
> > > 
> ...
> > 
> > > Has Daily12 ever been used by amanda before so that
> > > you are sure it once had a label?
> > 
> > No it has not been used. It was a new tape. I am sure there 
> was a label on the media
> > because there I ran: 
> > 
> > amtape  reset
> > amtape  show 
> > 
> > before I started running Amanda in production at that time 
> all tapes had a label
> 
> 
> I've not heard of amanda trashing labels,
> maybe you have uncovered a defect somewhere.
> 
> Consider also that nothing prevents other apps from writing
> to the tape and trashing a label.


Amanda (and myself) are the only things (I know of) on this machine.
I just did a amtape show and 5 out of 14 tapes had no labels. I am investigating 
one of the tapes to see if I can recover any data from the tape.


If this is a defect, it is a bit of a nasty one. At lest I can tell the "correct"
label of the tape from the barcode.
 
> -- 
> Jon H. LaBadie  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>  JG Computing
>  4455 Province Line Road    (609) 252-0159
>  Princeton, NJ  08540-4322  (609) 683-7220 (fax)
> 

RE: tapes looking their Amanda labels

[Henson, George Mr JMLFDC]

Title: RE: tapes looking their Amanda labels





> On Fri, Jan 16, 2004 at 09:33:37AM -0500, Henson, George Mr 
> JMLFDC wrote:
> > All,
> > 
> > I have a HP Sure Store E Silo (20 slots/2 LTO Gen 1 Drives) 
> connected to my HP/UX 11i server with amanda-2.4.4 installed. 
> I wrote an Amanda label to every tape in the silo. Last night 
> my backup asked for Tape Daily12. The changer (mtx) 
> loaded the tape (which I had labeled Daily12), but the 
> tape had no Amanda label on it.
> 
> 
> Line breaks would be appreciated.


leave it to Outlook (my mail reader) to mess things up



> I see no indication that you have confirmed that
> there is or is not a label on the tape at this time;
> just that last nights run did not find it.
> 
> Have you tried amtape to load the tape and then the
> amtape "current" command to show what label is there if any?


Yes I have tried the current command. It said the tape was not an amanda tape.


> Or have you tried doing a dd of a single 32K block at the
> start of the tape (that is where the label is located).


dd did not return any data from the head of the tape. 0 records


> Has Daily12 ever been used by amanda before so that
> you are sure it once had a label?


No it has not been used. It was a new tape. I am sure there was a label on the media
because there I ran: 


amtape  reset
amtape  show 


before I started running Amanda in production at that time all tapes had a label


> Labels with long strings of repeating chars can be a
> problem to type.  Is the number of zeros consistant
> everywhere they should be (4 zeros in your message).


yes


> -- 
> Jon H. LaBadie  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>  JG Computing
>  4455 Province Line Road    (609) 252-0159
>  Princeton, NJ  08540-4322  (609) 683-7220 (fax)
> 

RE: tapes loosing their Amanda labels

[Henson, George Mr JMLFDC]

Title: tapes looking their Amanda labels



No. I 
had run amtapetype on the first tape in the silo, then labeled all the 
tapes.
 
Thank 
you

  -Original Message-From: Tom Brown 
  [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]Sent: Friday, January 16, 2004 
  9:39 AMTo: Henson, George Mr JMLFDC; Amanda List 
  (E-mail)Subject: Re: tapes looking their Amanda 
  labels
  Did you use that tape to do an amtapetype at 
  all?
   
  If so that would wipe the label
   
  Tom
  
- Original Message - 
From: 
Henson, George Mr JMLFDC 

To: Amanda List (E-mail) 
Sent: Friday, January 16, 2004 2:33 
PM
Subject: tapes looking their Amanda 
labels

All, 
I have a HP Sure Store E Silo (20 slots/2 LTO Gen 1 Drives) 
connected to my HP/UX 11i server with amanda-2.4.4 installed. I wrote an 
Amanda label to every tape in the silo. Last night my backup asked for Tape 
Daily12. The changer (mtx) loaded the tape (which I had labeled 
Daily12), but the tape had no Amanda label on it.
Any ideas? 
Thank you, George Henson 
  

tapes looking their Amanda labels

[Henson, George Mr JMLFDC]

Title: tapes looking their Amanda labels





All,


I have a HP Sure Store E Silo (20 slots/2 LTO Gen 1 Drives) connected to my HP/UX 11i server with amanda-2.4.4 installed. I wrote an Amanda label to every tape in the silo. Last night my backup asked for Tape Daily12. The changer (mtx) loaded the tape (which I had labeled Daily12), but the tape had no Amanda label on it.

Any ideas?


Thank you,
George Henson

problem getting dump from one file system

[Henson, George Mr JMLFDC]

Title: problem getting dump from one file system 





All,


I am having a problem getting a dump from one file system on a remote machine. It seems to intermittently (60% of the time) fail to dump correctly. It is one of my larger file systems 20Gig (with 10gig of data). The second file system on the box does not give me any issue.


FAILURE AND STRANGE DUMP SUMMARY:
  logfly02   /conversion lev 2 FAILED [data timeout]





FAILED AND STRANGE DUMP DETAILS:


/-- logfly02   /conversion lev 2 FAILED [data timeout]
sendbackup: start [logfly02:/conversion level 2]
sendbackup: info BACKUP=/sbin/vxdump
sendbackup: info RECOVER_CMD=/sbin/vxrestore -f... -
sendbackup: info end
|   vxdump: Date of this level 2 dump: Thu Jan 15 03:16:21 2004
|   vxdump: Date of last level 1 dump: Tue Jan 13 02:07:53 2004
|   vxdump: Dumping /dev/vgdbconvert/rlvolconversion to standard output
|   vxdump: mapping (Pass I) [regular files]
|   vxdump: mapping (Pass II) [directories]
|   vxdump: estimated 2377732 blocks (1161.00MB) on 0.02 tape(s).
|   vxdump: dumping (Pass III) [directories]
\


NOTES:
  planner: Incremental of logfly02:/conversion bumped to level 2.





(brought to you by Amanda version 2.4.4)



I looked at the logs in /tmp/amanda on the client. I see it starting the dump but then just dies mysteriously




sendbackup: time 0.014: got all connections
sendbackup: time 0.019: dumping device '/dev/vgdbconvert/rlvolconversion' with 'vxfs'
sendbackup: time 0.026: spawning /sbin/vxdump in pipeline
sendbackup: argument list: vxdump 2usf 1048576 - /dev/vgdbconvert/rlvolconversion
sendbackup: time 0.033: started index creator: "/sbin/vxrestore -tvf - 2>/dev/null | sed -e '
s/^leaf[    ]*[0-9]*[   ]*\.//
t
/^dir[  ]/ {
s/^dir[     ]*[0-9]*[   ]*\.//
s%$%/%
t
}
d
'"
sendbackup: time 0.240:  96:  normal(|):   vxdump: Date of this level 2 dump: Thu Jan 15 03:16:21 2004
sendbackup: time 0.242:  96:  normal(|):   vxdump: Date of last level 1 dump: Tue Jan 13 02:07:53 2004
sendbackup: time 0.243:  96:  normal(|):   vxdump: Dumping /dev/vgdbconvert/rlvolconversion to standard output
sendbackup: time 0.245:  96:  normal(|):   vxdump: mapping (Pass I) [regular files]
sendbackup: time 2.098:  96:  normal(|):   vxdump: mapping (Pass II) [directories]
sendbackup: time 4.367:  96:  normal(|):   vxdump: estimated 2377732 blocks (1161.00MB) on 0.02 tape(s).
sendbackup: time 4.372:  96:  normal(|):   vxdump: dumping (Pass III) [directories]



Any ideas?
Thank you
George Henson

Encrypted network traffic

[Henson, George Mr JMLFDC]

Title: Encrypted network traffic





All,


Is there support to have the network traffic to be encrypted? We have several systems we would like to backup over the network, but we have a mandate from our management that all the data transfers need to be encrypted.

Thank you in advance,
George Henson

Issue with tape changer configuration

[Henson, George Mr JMLFDC]

Title: Issue with tape changer configuration





All,


We new to Amanda and are having an issue getting the bar code reader to work in our tape changer. We have an HP C7200 (2 LTO drives/20 media slots) connected to an N class HP Server (HP/UX 11i amanda-2.4.4).

The HP supplied utils (ltt tools) are able to read the barcode info from the tape silo, move the tapes, and inventory the robot with no known issues.

I have tried to configure the chg-scsi interface with marginal success. If I turn off the barcode reader (havebarcode 0) then I can get Amanda to run backups and amtape seems to act normal. If I understand correctly, this also means the system must do a linear search for the media in the silo, instead of using the barcode info.

Once I turn on the bar code reader (havebarcode 1) then I error messages from amtape and backups fail. When I try using the chg-scsi (chg-scsi -slot 3) command directly to move the media from slot n into the drive, it moves the media, but then reports an error:

BarCode == 1 and enubarcode == 1


with and exit status of 2


If I issue the same command again it returns success.


The other oddity I have noticed is if I issue the command to inventory the silo (chg-scsi -inventory) the label file grows very quickly to fill the disk.

Thank you in advance,
George Henson

Dump Vs Tar tradeoffs (if any)

[Henson, George Mr JMLFDC]

Title: Dump Vs Tar tradeoffs (if any)





All,


We are still new to Amanda and would greatly appreciate some advise on how to best configure  the system


What are the advantages or disadvantages to using tar instead of dump? Is there a difference in restoring a single file? a file system? or the whole system? (other then changing restore to tar x)

If it helps, we are using HP/UX 11i (on an N class system) to backup about 10 client (HP/UX 11, HP/UX 11i, and Linux) onto LTO media using a C7200 silo/changer.

Thank you,
George Henson

Re: to compress or not to compress ???

[George Kelbley]

restoring w/o amrestore can be done with dd, gzip, tar, and so on, way
messy compared to amrecover (or amrestore) but its possible.  That's one
of the plus's to amanda.

Kurt Yoder wrote:
> 
> Assuming you're running Linux, all you need is some form of Linux
> rescue disk. I've got a bunch of Debian installer cd's lying around
> and have used them for similar purposes before. Probably most Linux
> installer cd's can be used like this, and I'm quite certain
> something like Knoppix would include all the utilities anyone would
> need. Who knows, might even work to restore tapes made with
> non-Linux amanda servers.
> 
> BTW, if restoring without an amanda server, doesn't one also need
> amrestore? The other day I tried restoring an amanda image, and had
> to run it through amrestore before I could untar it.
> 
> Eric Siegerman said:
> > On Thu, Jul 03, 2003 at 12:17:16PM -0400, Ean Kingston wrote:
> >> Also, with hardware compression, I know I can restore the tape
> >> without having
> >> to worry about finding the right libraries and programs to do the
> >> restore.
> >
> > True.  But one can work around that by backing up / uncompressed,
> > and making sure it contains a (possibly statically linked) copy
> > of gzip.  Hmmm, something to add to my to-do list :-(
> 
> --
> Kurt Yoder
> Sport & Health network administrator

-- 
George Kelbley  System Support Group
Computer Science Department University of New Mexico
505-277-6502Fax: 505-277-6927

tar via nfs errors

[George Kelbley]

I'm trying to back up a Network Appliance filer via nfs, got the
following output from sendsize debug:

sendsize: debug 1 pid 792 ruid 34 euid 34 start time Fri Jun 13 04:46:30
2003
/usr/lib/amanda/sendsize: version 2.4.2p2
calculating for amname '/nfs/share/.snapshot/snapshot_for_amanda',
dirname '/nfs/share/.snapshot/snapshot_for_amanda'
sendsize: getting size via gnutar for
/nfs/share/.snapshot/snapshot_for_amanda level 0
sendsize: spawning /usr/lib/amanda/runtar in pipeline
sendsize: argument list: /bin/tar --create --file /dev/null --directory
/nfs/share/.snapshot/snapshot_for_amanda --one-file-system
--listed-incremental
/var/lib/amanda/gnutar-lists/amanda.cs.unm.edu_nfs_share_.snapshot_snapshot_for_amanda_0.new
--sparse --ignore-failed-read --totals .
/bin/tar: ./info/crowley: Cannot savedir: Permission denied
.
(no size line match in above gnutar output)
.
sendsize: pid 792 finish time Fri Jun 13 04:47:53 2003


and this from runtar debug:

runtar: debug 1 pid 798 ruid 34 euid 0 start time Fri Jun 13 04:46:30
2003
/bin/tar: version 2.4.2p2
running: /bin/tar: /bin/tar --create --file /dev/null --directory
/nfs/share/.snapshot/snapshot_for_amanda --one-file-system
--listed-incremental
/var/lib/amanda/gnutar-lists/amanda.cs.unm.edu_nfs_share_.snapshot_snapshot_for_amanda_0.new
--sparse --ignore-failed-read --totals . 

just running tar by hand works normally.


George Kelbley  System Support Group
Computer Science Department University of New Mexico
505-277-6502Fax: 505-277-6927

Re: NetApp request

[George Kelbley]

Actually, let me begin again.  

We actually this working on amanda 2.4.1 (I think).  The source code for
amanda-client had to be patched to collect the correct estimate, AND you
had to replace /sbin/dump with the perl script(s), and everything
worked.  When we went to 2.4.2 it broke and we didn't get around to
fixing it.  Now we have a new, larger, filer and the project is back
on.  I've tried letting amanda back up via nfs, but it almost always
fails at some point, the error we get in the sendsize debug is "/bin/tar
cannot create directory"  (or something like that).

You have to create "devices" for the filer in /dev so amanda thinks the
filer is itself, not another host.  

my disklist looks like this:

sherman.cs.unm.edu  /dev/poptart/etcdump

sherman is my amanda server, poptart is my NetApp.  My entries in /dev/
are:

sherman:/dev# ls -l poptart
total 0
crw-r--r--1 root root   1,   3 Jun 12 10:31 etc
crw-r--r--1 root root   1,   3 Jun 12 11:43 staff

If I run dump by hand:

/sbin/dump 0usf x - /dev/poptart/etc > somefile

it works fine.

Running it from amanda fails.

When you say "modified dump" do you mean the perl scripts and
setuidump.c?


Ashwin Kotian wrote:
> 
> Are you saying that you are able to successfully
> backup the Netapp without using the modified dump
> program & using Amanda version earlier than 2.4.4 ?
> 
> If you are successfully able to do so, can you send me
> your disklist for the Netapp part so that I can
> compare with mine ?
> 
> The modified dump program for Netapp works fine for
> smaller directories. But I'm using DDS4 tapes (20Gb
> uncompressed) & my filesystem on the Netapp is about
> 90 Gb, so usually backups for the directories on the
> Netapp that are greater than 20 Gb fail.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Ashwin.
> 
> --- Frank Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > --On Thursday, June 12, 2003 14:56:18 -0600 George
> > Kelbley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > > I may be missing something simple here, but, we
> > want to back up a
> > > Network Appliance using amanda.  2.4.4 seems to
> > have patches to collect
> > > the correct size, and I installed the perl scripts
> > and dump program that
> > > I found at
> > www.xs4all.nl/~johnpc/amanda-netapp-dump-0.1/, but
> > the dump
> > > script exits with "cannot handle dump", and I
> > think its because it
> > > doesn't like the 'S' argument its getting from
> > amanda.
> > >
> > > Since the 2.4.4 code has been patched for a
> > NetApp, I'm assuming someone
> > > is actually using it?
> >
> > Never tried the ndmp stuff since I started using
> > Amanda before it was
> > included, so I NFS-mounted the NetApp filesystems on
> > the backup server
> > and treat them as local disks.  Probably not quite
> > as fast, especially
> > if you do client-compress and don't have a lot of
> > CPU on the server, but
> > it works.
> >
> > Frank
> >
> >
> > --
> > Frank Smith
> >[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > Systems Administrator
> >   Voice: 512-374-4673
> > Hoover's Online
> > Fax: 512-374-4501
> 
> __
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM).
> http://calendar.yahoo.com

-- 
George Kelbley  System Support Group
Computer Science Department University of New Mexico
505-277-6502Fax: 505-277-6927

NetApp request

[George Kelbley]

I may be missing something simple here, but, we want to back up a
Network Appliance using amanda.  2.4.4 seems to have patches to collect
the correct size, and I installed the perl scripts and dump program that
I found at www.xs4all.nl/~johnpc/amanda-netapp-dump-0.1/, but the dump
script exits with "cannot handle dump", and I think its because it
doesn't like the 'S' argument its getting from amanda.  

Since the 2.4.4 code has been patched for a NetApp, I'm assuming someone
is actually using it?
-- 
George Kelbley  System Support Group
Computer Science Department University of New Mexico
505-277-6502Fax: 505-277-6927

tape hardware choices

[George Kelbley]

I'm looking into upgrading my tape hardware, and while a I know lots of
sales types will give me lots of info, I was wondering what folks are
using for amanda.

Currently using an OverlandData LoaderExpress, 1 DLT8 drive, 10 tape
library.  We get almost 2:1 compression using software, but I'm starting
to get a couple of large files systems which consistantly need a tape
"just for them", so I end up using more and more tapes.

My entire load is about a terabyte, but I have new file server coming on
line, rsn, which will be a terabyte all by itself.  

So any users of LTO, Super DLT, AIT?  

My amanda server is a Dell Workstation, Xeon 2GHz, 1 GB of memory and
lots of scsi controllers and disks..

thanks to all,
-- 
George Kelbley  System Support Group
Computer Science Department University of New Mexico
505-277-6502Fax: 505-277-6927

xfs on linux

[George Kelbley]

Has anyone experimented with using xfs with xfsdump on a linux based
file server as an alternative to tar on reiserfs.
-- 
George Kelbley  System Support Group
Computer Science Department University of New Mexico
505-277-6502Fax: 505-277-6927

ndmp and amanda

[George Kelbley]

Our site is installing a Network Appliance in the next month or so.  We
currently use amanda to backup our linux file servers.  The NetAp guys
tell us they think ndmp was getting rolled into amanda but I don't see
anything in a brief search.  Is anyone using amanda and ndmp?

-- 
George Kelbley  System Support Group
Computer Science Department University of New Mexico
505-277-6502Fax: 505-277-6927

ADIC Scalar 100 & amanda-2.4.2p2

[George A. Kofoed]

Greetings all;

We recently acquired an ADIC Scalar 100 library with 3 x SuperDLT
drives. Its connected to a multi-processor Sun Ultra2 running Solaris 8.
I've dowloaded and compiled amanda-2.4.2p2. Using amanda, I can backup
the Ultra itself to a single drive in the library. Now I want to try and
get the library robotics working in conjuction with the other two
drives. Has anyone ever set up amanda for use with this make/model of
tape library. If so, could you please give me a hint as to what changer
and changer configuration file to use? Thanks in advance
-- 
George A. Kofoed
Systems Administration
Parsons
905-943-4915

Re: [amanda@gorn.americom.com: AmeriCom AMANDA MAIL REPORT FOR April 9, 2002]

[Uncle George]

i guess your next step would be the more detailed logs. How about
reviewing the 'amdump.[0-9]' files in the 'logdir' directory defined in
amanda.conf ?

 

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> 
> Thanks for your reply...
> 
> However, the Ecrix V17 tapesize is set to 35000 mbytes and...
> 
>  Filesystem  Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
> solo.americom.com:/ is:  /dev/sda3   7.9G  6.9G  632M  92%   /
> gorn.americom.com:/ is:  /dev/sda4   5.1G  4.3G  547M  89%   /
> 
> The other MISSING filesystems are also easily under 35G.  Is amanda

If estimated disk size > tape size

[Uncle George]

will amanda tape out the data that cant fit onto that 40gig tape and
then onto the next tape OR will it start over again from the beginning (
as the docs currently say ) and try to fit something that will never fit
onto that tape?. If docs are correct, why does amanda bother bother
attempting to write any partition that has more data than the tape than
the tape can hold?

should'nt there be a "sorry can't do that" error?

/gat

Re: Linux DUMP

[Uncle George]

Gee fella's, i didnt mean this to be a slam fest ( or was that a 'dis
fest ).

 I just think, particularly on this list, that there are caveats out
there AND FOLKS ON THIS LIST would be the best ones to know about such
things. There is one for dump on linux, and it appears that there might
be other gotcha's out there. But I'd really like to know about such
things before I need to REALLY do a restore - which is, as someone
pointed out before, not the best time to figure out that your backups
was not faithfully done.

 

"C. Chan" wrote:
> 
> Also Sprach Anthony A. D. Talltree:
> 
> > >Its interesting that I was unaware of this dilema ( the possible failure
> > >of DUMP ) until it was posted on this list
> >
> > It's mentioned in the second paragraph of Sun's ufsdump man page.

Re: Linux DUMP

[Uncle George]

Sorry, thats a general conclusion to most things in life. 

Is there a situation(s) where DUMP can fail. If yes, why are there no
warning labels ( ie the probability of failure is 1 in 1billion ). If
NO, than can I see the proof that absolutely refutes Mr. Torvolds
statement.
/gat

Its interesting that I was unaware of this dilema ( the possible failure
of DUMP ) until it was posted on this list. Maybe others, as they post
DUMP v. TAR inquiries should also be made aware of this possible
scenario.
I'm also reasonably quite sure that most parents would not contemplate
placing small children ( as well as small adults ) in front seats with
air-bags - now-adays, even though testing proved that air-bags are safe,
and a proven safety feature. 
 
Joshua Baker-LePain wrote:
> > does this mean that there was a definitive conclusion?
> 
> Yup -- use what you are comfortable with and what your testing proves
> works.

Re: Linux DUMP

[Uncle George]

does this mean that there was a definitive conclusion? 

Christoph Scheeder wrote:
> 
> Please not again this discussion...

Re: Linux DUMP

[Uncle George]

Ya, but didnt someone post that "DUMP" on linux can fail - if the
conditions are right? I think is was suggested that SMP systems can
demonstrate the failure sooner. 
I think that Mr. Torvolds ( sorry is i mis-spelled) made that comment or
conclusion. 
Are there some caveats that need to be added here ?
/gat

"Bernhard R. Erdmann" wrote:
> 
> > Which backup program is best? dump, says some people. Elizabeth D. Zwicky
> > torture tested lots of backup programs. The clear choice for preserving
> > all your data and all the peculiarities of Unix filesystems is dump, she
> > stated. Elizabeth created filesystems containing a large variety of
> > unusual conditions (and some not so unusual ones) and tested each program
> > by do a backup and restore of that filesystems. The peculiarities
> > included: files with holes, files with holes and a block of nulls, files
> > with funny characters in their names, unreadable and unwriteable files,
> > devices, files that change size during the backup, files that are
> > created/deleted during the backup and more. She presented the results at
> > LISA V in Oct. 1991.
> 
> This article is archived here:
> http://berdmann.dyndns.org/doc/dump/zwicky/testdump.doc.html

Re: Any automagic exclusion of filesystems?

[Uncle George]

Jens Rohde wrote:
> 
> Hi
> 
I suppose that the disk/fs that will/might be restored to, that is to be
recognized by SUN, will be done on a machine that can create the
(unofficial) sun partition correctly?

> I'm changing the dump-method on some of my filesystems from ufsdump to
> gtar (so I can restore these filesystems on non-Sun hardware/OS).
>

Re: Estimates - 7 hour 50mins

[Uncle George]

I presume u are using tar?!
 From My experience, 17gigs of a (few) large files does not take a long
time.
On the other hand, backing up a large amount of files in a (single)
directory takes a long time. The orig tar that came with this (linux)
sys readily reached 80% cpu usage. The later tar fixed that, so now it
still takes a long time ( but mainly it just waits for all the
disk/directory activity ?! )

So whats the culprit? Since there are 2 phases ( size estimate, and then
data transfer ) i suspect that each part takes about 4 hours.To find
out, you can do a "time tar cf - .. " just like what the sendsize
program would do on your system. just to See how long that takes.

Then how fast is your tape drive? a 5.0mb/sec tape drive would take 56
min just to back up 17gig. This presumes that the tape is screaming ( i
ment streaming ) . 

a "df -i" might help in determing how many files might be out on the
system.

David Flood wrote:
> 
> We kick off our backup at 10pm at the moment we are only
> backing up 4 seperate directorys i.e. 4 seperate disklist entries.
> These are estimated by amanda to be 17.4GB. The estimates are
> taking just short of 8 hours to complete which is unacceptable.
> This is after making every dump a full dump in an attempt to cut
> down time with doing estimates for level 1 & 2. To force it to do full
> dumps I have did the following in amanda.conf:
> 
> dumpcycle 0
> strategey noinc
> skip-incr yes
> 
> I'm running:
> amanda 2.4.3b3
> Solaris 7
> Using tar
> I'm restore onto a 35/70 DLT with software compression.
> 
> The 4 directorys mentioned above are all on the tapeserver and
> those are the only thing the tapeserver is backing up.
> 
> Does anyone have any ideas, because the estimates are taking so
> long the backups are still running when the users come in - in the
> morning. This means the backups I'm getting if I get them are 'dirty'
> not to mention it slows the system down as backups and users are
> trying to access the same data.
> 
> Thanks in advance
> 
> David Flood
> Systems Administrator

Re: dos partion

[Uncle George]

u probably want to back it up with tar - i suppose. There is not enough
info, but i could guess ur using dump.
/gat

Tom Beer wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I want to back a dos partition
> on a dual boot machine. I mount
> this parition /mnt/dos and the disklist
> entry is
> 
> vaio.system ad0s1   comp-user
> 
> sendsize.debug states "bad sblock number"
> entiry dump terminated.
> 
> Any pointers?
> 
> Thanks Tom

Re: Questions with chg-zd-mtx

[Uncle George]

I think u are looking for the "OFFLINE_BEFORE_UNLOAD=1" setting in
chg-zd-mtx

Nate DeLong wrote:
> 
> 
> Ok. It wasn't until I went to BRU's website that I found the following
> command (that worked):
> 
> # mt -f /dev/nst0 offline
> 
> Then I can finish up by issuing a " mtx -f /dev/sga unload 1 ".
> 
> So, that explains what I've done... Now I was hoping someone could steer me
> in the right direction with chg-zd-mtx. It does support using the " mt
>  offline" but do I need to do anything special in my instance. And,
> is my instance unusual, or is the tape drive itself usually seen as
> /dev/nst0?
> 
> Sorry for the longwinded e-mail.
> 
> Nate D.

data timeout on sendbackup phase

[Uncle George]

with a dtimeout of 1800 ( seconds, or 30 min ) the 'sendbackup' of
/mnt/hdg3 fails with a data timeout. 
The Client side gets a:


=
ckup: argument list: gtar --create --file - --directory /mnt/hdg3
--one-file-system --listed-incremental
/usr/local/var/amanda/gnutar-lists/lx_mnt_hdg3_0.new --sparse
--ignore-failed-read --totals --exclude-from
/usr/local/etc/amanda/gtar/exclude.gtar .
sendbackup-gnutar: /usr/local/libexec/runtar: pid 1006
sendbackup: started index creator: "/bin/gtar -tf - 2>/dev/null | sed -e
's/^\.//'"
index tee cannot write [Broken pipe]
sendbackup: pid 1005 finish time Mon Apr 15 13:21:25 2002
==

The server gets a :
==
driver: result time 9669.653 from taper: PORT 1032
driver: send-cmd time 9669.653 to dumper0: PORT-DUMP 01-4 1032 lx
/mnt/hdg3 0 1970:1:1:0:0:0 GNUTAR
|;bsd-auth;index;exclude-list=/usr/local/etc/amanda/gtar/exclude.gtar;
driver: state time 9669.653 free kps: 2239 space: 0 taper: writing
idle-dumpers: 3 qlen tapeq: 0 runq: 0 roomq: 0 wakeup: 86400
driver-idle: not-idle
driver: interface-state time 9669.653 if : free 839 if LE0: free 400 if
LOCAL: free 1000
driver: hdisk-state time 9669.653 hdisk 0: free 0 dumpers 0 hdisk 1:
free 0 dumpers 0
dumper: stream_client: connected to 127.0.0.1.1032
dumper: stream_client: our side is 0.0.0.0.1033
dumper: try_socksize: send buffer size is 65536
taper: stream_accept: connection from 127.0.0.1.1033
taper: try_socksize: receive buffer size is 32768
dumper: stream_client: connected to 192.168.0.10.32772
dumper: stream_client: our side is 0.0.0.0.1034
dumper: stream_client: connected to 192.168.0.10.32773
dumper: stream_client: our side is 0.0.0.0.1035
dumper: stream_client: connected to 192.168.0.10.32774
dumper: stream_client: our side is 0.0.0.0.1036
driver: result time 11470.452 from dumper0: FAILED 01-4 [data
timeout]
dumper: kill index command
taper: reader-side: got label AmandaFullBackup22 filenum 2
driver: result time 11470.454 from taper: DONE 00-3
AmandaFullBackup22 2 [sec 1800.798 kb 32 kps 0.0 {wr: writers 1 rdwait
1798.614 wrwait 0.000 filemark 2.183}]



On the side, can you tell me who, or what is fed into this script?. If
its the tar'd data, then there is a potential problem. Some of the files
are in the gigabyte range. Although at 100mbps ethernet can take some
min, but taping it out at 1.5MBps may take a lot longer that 30min to
get another 'index' name, or even a buffer of names. Is this where the
'data timeout' is happening ?

/gat

Re: [amanda@gorn.americom.com: AmeriCom AMANDA MAIL REPORT FOR April 9, 2002]

[Uncle George]

i guess your next step would be the more detailed logs. How about
reviewing the 'amdump.[0-9]' files in the 'logdir' directory defined in
amanda.conf ?

 

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> 
> Thanks for your reply...
> 
> However, the Ecrix V17 tapesize is set to 35000 mbytes and...
> 
>  Filesystem  Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
> solo.americom.com:/ is:  /dev/sda3   7.9G  6.9G  632M  92%   /
> gorn.americom.com:/ is:  /dev/sda4   5.1G  4.3G  547M  89%   /
> 
> The other MISSING filesystems are also easily under 35G.  Is amanda

Re: [amanda@gorn.americom.com: AmeriCom AMANDA MAIL REPORT FOR April 9, 2002]

[Uncle George]

i suppose this will do it:

>   planner: Dump too big for tape: full dump of solo.americom.com:/ delayed.
>   planner: Dump too big for tape: full dump of gorn.americom.com:/ delayed.

a single backup point must be able to fit onto one tape. So if your tape
is 4gig, but your partition is 6 gig, then it wont do it.  

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> 
> Can anyone tell me what log/debug files to look in to find out why I
> keep getting the MISSING errors below, and what I should be looking for?
> 
> The same filesystems are MISSING each day.
> 
> Thanks,
> Dick
> 
> --- Start of forwarded message ---
> Date: 9 Apr 2002 12:52:11 -
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: AmeriCom AMANDA MAIL REPORT FOR April 9, 2002
> 
> *** THE DUMPS DID NOT FINISH PROPERLY!
> 
> These dumps were to tape Daily4.
> The next tape Amanda expects to use is: Daily5.
> 
>

Re: Only 3 tapes in 7 tape changer gets scaned twice

[Uncle George]

There are still some bug-a-boo's.

non-amanda tape in slot 5, and loaded in tape drive. 
no tape in slot 6. There is an amanda tape in slot 7

issue an amcheck confname

get

--
[Amanda@kodak Amanda]$ amtape confname slot 5
amtape: changed to slot 5 on /dev/nst0
[Amanda@kodak Amanda]$ amcheck confname
Amanda Tape Server Host Check
-
ERROR: holding disk /mnt/hdd4/amanda: statfs: No such file or directory
ERROR: holding disk /mnt/sda1/amanda: statfs: No such file or directory
amcheck-server: slot 5: not an amanda tape
amcheck-server: fatal slot 6: source Element Address 8 is Empty
ERROR: label AmandaFullBackup22 or new tape not found in rack
   (expecting tape AmandaFullBackup22 or a new tape)
NOTE: skipping tape-writable test
Server check took 31.128 seconds

Amanda Backup Client Hosts Check

WARNING: lx: selfcheck request timed out.  Host down?
Client check: 1 host checked in 30.002 seconds, 1 problem found

(brought to you by Amanda 2.4.2p2)
[Amanda@kodak Amanda]$ 
--

It does not check tape 7, nor tape 1 or tape 2. If tape 7 is loaded (
AmandaFullBackup22 ), then amcheck is happy.  I suppose one can mix &
match, but i suppose in a BIG tape changer there may be a few empty
slots, and a few full ( and even some with the tapes you want to use as
the backup media ). 



ALSO openening the changer door resets the changers idea of whats loaded
in each slot. The first time i run amcheck, i get a tape error. The
changer does not move. But his test would ruin one nights backup
attempt! A second amcheck gets it going.

[Amanda@kodak Amanda]$ amcheck confname
Amanda Tape Server Host Check
-
ERROR: holding disk /mnt/hdd4/amanda: statfs: No such file or directory
ERROR: holding disk /mnt/sda1/amanda: statfs: No such file or directory
amcheck-server: could not get changer info: no slots available






"John R. Jackson" wrote:
> 
> >This is far short of a million, even if its binary, questions!

Re: Only 3 tapes in 7 tape changer gets scaned twice

[Uncle George]

Interesting, the log file shows that offline_before_unload is set to "0"
:-{

  Storage Element 5:Full
  Storage Element 6:Empty
  Storage Element 7:Full
12:18:14 SLOTLIST -> firstslot set to 1
12:18:14 SLOTLIST -> lastslot set to 7
12:18:14 SLOTLIST ->  1 2 3 4 5 6 7
12:18:15 Config info:
 firstslot = "1"
 lastslot = "7"
 cleanslot = "-1"
 cleancycle = "-1"
 offline_before_unload = "0"
 unloadpause = "0"
 autoclean = "0"
 autocleancount = "99"
 havereader = "0"
 driveslot = "0"
 poll_drive_ready = "3"
 max_drive_wait = "120"


"John R. Jackson" wrote:
> 
> >It appears that the offline_before_unload switch/feature  does not work
> >in this script!  ...
> 
> What is in the changer log file?

Re: Only 3 tapes in 7 tape changer gets scaned twice

[Uncle George]

This is far short of a million, even if its binary, questions!

actually plugged it in, and linked it to ...sh.in
rebuilt it ( make, not configure ) , but no install. Just cp'd the
chg-zd-mtx to /usr/local/libexec. I know its there bec the old version
is ~17k, and newer one is ~37k

it does not work bec it does not (apparently) do a "mt rewoffl" before
changing to the next tape. I can manually do a mt rewoffl, and then
amtape confname slot 2  will work.


firstslot=1
lastslot=7
cleanslot=9
havereader=0
offlinestatus=1
AUTOCLEAN=0
autocleancount=0
offline_before_unload=1


"John R. Jackson" wrote:
> 
> >It appears that the offline_before_unload switch/feature  does not work
> >in this script!  ...
> 
> Insufficient details, so you get a million questions in response:
> 
> Did you drop this file in place of your existing chg-zd-mtx.sh.in file
> (saving the original in case there is a problem)?
> 
> Did you rerun ./configure, then "make" then "make install"?
> 
> What did you put in your changer config file?
> 
> What is in the changer log file?
> 
> Why do you think it's not working?
> 
> >/gat
> 
> John R. Jackson, Technical Software Specialist, [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Only 3 tapes in 7 tape changer gets scaned twice

[Uncle George]

It appears that the offline_before_unload switch/feature  does not work
in this script! Am i  :-/
/gat

"John R. Jackson" wrote:
> 
> I think the following patch fixes that version.  Also, there is a new
> copy of the whole thing at:
> 
>   ftp://gandalf.cc.purdue.edu/pub/amanda/chg-zd-mtx.sh.in-243
> 
> Also, could you send your chg-zd-mtx config file?  I think I understand
>

Re: Unloading tapes when task done ?

[Uncle George]

DLT's are not flying head technology. They are like 9trk, QIC, i think
travan, colorado. The heads do not spin ( i had to think about it ), as
the heads move up & down to change tracks. But the DLT 8000, now, also
place the heads at an angle to tape direction, as well as going up and
down. I dont even think there is an idler pully, just a tach. I'd like
to know if there is 'continual' tension on the tape while it is loaded (
on a dlt )( Like that of a DEC Tape, or 9trk )  but I do not know.

But for whatever technology reasons the schemes that tape mechanisms
have evolved, they all rely on knowing what 'state' that they are in.
When you have a power outage, turn off the drive, lightning, whatever, 
you may find that the tape left inside the mechanism to be of little use
to you. Quantum says dont do that, AND i'd bet that the legal staff of
the other drive manufacturers will never certify that you will always
recover a tape left inside the mechanism.


Gene Heskett wrote:
>> I'd love to see the tapes stored and used at or slightly below 50
> degrees F, and <50% relative humidity as the tape is many times
> less abrasive then.  Some TV stations have even gone so far as to
> store their tapes in a small room adjacent to the control room
> which is maintained in the 40 degree and <40% range.   Everyting
> lasts longer, a lot longer.
But i suppose that if you needed a tape right away, you'd have to wait
for the temp rise, otherwise ud get condensation on the kolder tapes.
> 
> The tape makers themselves recommend it too, and have data to

Re: sendbackup with dumplevel 0 takes a while to startup :-{

[Uncle George]

Problem with this is obtaining a definitive PROOF. 
you do the amanda process, and you notice that the tape is not spinning,
even though you are in the sendbackup phase. You notice that the
ethernet switch is not blinking. You can also notice the task(s) that
are running. You also notice that the disk controller light is light.
You can make some general conclusions, like gee the reason i up'ed the
destimate value from 30min to 6hours is due to what is occuring now. I
dont know why, or all of the facts, but i do notice thats it's idle. and
i do notice transfer timeouts, although i dont know why exactly either -
yet.
/gat

 
"John R. Jackson" wrote:
> 
> >according to the tar docs, the --listed-incremental will check on the
> >files listed in the file if the incremental file is not empty. I suppose
> >the listed-incremental file got filled during the sendsize proceedure?!
> 
> No.  It got filled by the previous sendbackup run (e.g. yesterday).
> 
> And, FYI, for a level 0 (full) dump, the listed incremental file comes
> from /dev/null, i.e. it is used, but empty.
> 
> >During the sendbackup step, tar is apparently going through and checking
> >the list, as no data is being transmitted while tar is doing this check.
> 
> I'm not sure exactly how tar does this.  You'd have to look at their
> code or ask them.  I'd be surprised if it completely lost it for 30
> minutes, though.
> 
> >Is this how its suppose to work for a level 0 dump? ( 4 hours
> >(wall-time) sendsize, ~4hours (wall-time) incremental check, and finally
> >the transfer of the data ( i suppose longer that 4 hours ))  ...
> 
> Probably true.
> 
> >Is this how
> >it will work with other level dumps ( with the exception of the transfer
> >of data step) ?
> 
> Yes.  Except Amanda may also request a third estimate one level higher
> than the previous one if it might be time to bump (you can control this
> with the bump* parameters).
> 
> You might want to consider using an alternate size calculation tool called
> calcsize.  It's not well supported, and does not handle exclusion lists,
> but does all the estimates at the same time so you might gain quite a
> bit of time that way.
> 
> If you want to go this route, let me know and I'll find the postings
> from a while back about turning it back on.
> 
> >/gat
> 
> John R. Jackson, Technical Software Specialist, [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Unloading tapes when task done ?

[Uncle George]

Its sorta like when you go to your kar mechanic. The job is not complete
till you put all of your tools away, and cleaned your work area for the
next job. That would be the mechanics responsibility, and not the
cleaning staff that follows in the evening.

But at this moment, some 18hours after amanda started, it is still
going, and only on the third ( of an estimated 6 tape backup ). So the
unload/eject is the least of my current concerns with regard to getting
a backup to happen. 

Right now the most efficient system i have would be to run tar cMf
remoteHost:/dev/st0 /  directly on the remote system. after each EOT i
will run a shell script to change to the next tape. AFTER I DO THIS
CORRECTLY, only then will I get a TRUE feel of the time needed to do
this phase of the task.
/gat


"John R. Jackson" wrote:
> 
> >Maybe they can OPT-OUT of the feature ...
> 
> It's just as easy for someone to "opt-in" and do their own tape operations
> when Amanda is done.  Amanda will currently support both camps -- unload
> it when done vs. leave it alone.  Why add more complexity?  We already
> have too many options (and lots of other things on the TODO list).
> 
> >btw, what do u mean each operation.  ...
> 
> I meant amdump and amflush.
> 
> John R. Jackson, Technical Software Specialist, [EMAIL PROTECTED]

sendbackup with dumplevel 0 takes a while to startup :-{

[Uncle George]

according to the tar docs, the --listed-incremental will check on the
files listed in the file if the incremental file is not empty. I suppose
the listed-incremental file got filled during the sendsize proceedure?! 

During the sendbackup step, tar is apparently going through and checking
the list, as no data is being transmitted while tar is doing this check.
with a dtimeout of 30 minutes, i would get this unexpected timeout. 

Is this how its suppose to work for a level 0 dump? ( 4 hours
(wall-time) sendsize, ~4hours (wall-time) incremental check, and finally
the transfer of the data ( i suppose longer that 4 hours )) Is this how
it will work with other level dumps ( with the exception of the transfer
of data step) ?

/gat


10690 ?S  0:00 /usr/local/libexec/sendbackup
10691 ?S  0:00 /usr/local/libexec/sendbackup
10692 ?D  1:37 gtar --create --file - --directory /mnt/hdg3
--one-file-system --listed-incremental /usr/local/var/amanda/gnutar
10693 ?S  0:00 sh -c /bin/gtar -tf - 2>/dev/null | sed -e
's/^\.//'
10694 ?S  0:01 /bin/gtar -tf - PWD=/tmp/amanda HOSTNAME=LX
MACHTYPE=alpha-redhat-linux-gnu SHLVL=1 SHELL=/bin/bash HOSTTYPE=alp
10695 ?S  0:00 sed -e s/^\.// PWD=/tmp/amanda HOSTNAME=LX
MACHTYPE=alpha-redhat-linux-gnu SHLVL=1 SHELL=/bin/bash HOSTTYPE=alph

Re: Unloading tapes when task done ?

[Uncle George]

I Beleive you are in error. 4mm dds simply have the head stop spinning,
the tape is still wrapped around in the mechanism. The DLT I have does
not unload at all, unless specifically directed to. 
Maybe you can show me where u got your information from ? Maybe i can
find the quantum docs that say 'dont do that'.

Jay Lessert wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Apr 03, 2002 at 08:58:29AM -0500, Uncle George wrote:
> > Guess I'm from old school. Older 9trk drives when left on, continually
> > have the vacuum on, and under constant tension. Its not healthy for the
> > tape. Does that happen with a DLT tape, how about the DDS tapes.
> 
> 8mm, AIT*, DDS*, DLT*, LTO* drives all "unload" the tape (unwrap the
> tape from around the head and power down the servos) after some
> hardwired time period.
> 
> >  I would NOT like a "live" tape to be left in the drive for long periods
> > of time.
> 
> Then don't.  Is there something you need to do that amtape doesn't
> know how to do?
> 
> --
> Jay Lessert   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Accelerant Networks Inc.   (voice)1.503.439.3461
> Beaverton OR, USA(fax)1.503.466-9472

Re: Unloading tapes when task done ?

[Uncle George]

Jay Lessert wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Apr 03, 2002 at 06:19:19AM -0500, Uncle George wrote:
> > It seems like when the whole procedure ( whether its labeling tape(s),
> > amchecking tape, or amdumping ) is complete, the tape is left in the
> > tape drive in an on-line state.
> > Is there some reason why the tape is not at least rewind-offlined, or
> > for tape changer folks rewoffl/unload'ed back to the carousel slot when
> > the job/task is finished?
> 
> 1)  You would piss off people that are already doing:
> 
> amdump DAILY; amverify DAILY
> 
> ...from cron on a non-changer drive.
Maybe a visit to the toilet facility would do wonders to your
disposition. Its exceptionally arrogant of you to speak for us all. 
Since you dont know how it will be implemented, i can only wonder how
you or god know that this will be true.
> 
> 2)  Since it's already so easy to do any of:
> 
> amdump DAILY; amtape DAILY eject
> amdump DAILY; amtape DAILY slot next
> amdump DAILY; amtape DAILY slot advance
> 
> ...or anything else that makes sense for your particular installation,
> why hardwire some particular behavior into amdump (which would then
> inevitably be exactly the wrong behavior for some other poor schmoe's
> particular installation)?

Amazingly arrogant.  I might think that on a power failure, as Quantum
points out, they will not be responsible for the tape left inside the
drive. AND i agree with  their, slightly over stated, belief. The
purpose of a backup is not just to do a backup, but be able to restore
that data - generally when Kaos strikes. A trashed tape, even to the
poor schlep who believes in you, is of no use to anyone. When you are
finished, take the tape out, and put it in a safe place.
 
BTW who said it was, or has to be hardwired. it need not be any more
'hardwired' than dumpcycle 0, or compress none, or simply a
EjectWhenDone yes .

BTW#2 you should be doing an 
amdump  BACKUP; amtape BACKUP physically_set_write_protect_tab; amverify
BACKUP

Re: Unloading tapes when task done ?

[Uncle George]

Maybe they can OPT-OUT of the feature, but on a busy site, allowing the
customers to access the tape drives, would appear to make good business
sense. Particularily when the drives are doing just nothing.
/gat

btw, what do u mean each operation. Each run? If funny things happen,
maybe they should be addressed. After all, you got all these logs, and
status files hanging around.


"John R. Jackson" wrote:
> 
> >Is there some reason why the tape is not at least rewind-offlined ...
> 
> Because other users specifically asked for it to be left alone (we had
> to remove code that used to rewind after each operation).  I assume they
> run something else after amdump (for instance) to tack on a little more
> data to the tape.
> 
> And in the case of a changer, offlining the drive may cause other things
> to happen, such as dropping the stack and loading the next tape, which
> might not be what you want.  Better that we leave things alone and if
> a particular setup needs something different, it's easy for them to do.
> 
> John R. Jackson, Technical Software Specialist, [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Unloading tapes when task done ?

[Uncle George]

Guess I'm from old school. Older 9trk drives when left on, continually
have the vacuum on, and under constant tension. Its not healthy for the
tape. Does that happen with a DLT tape, how about the DDS tapes.
 I would NOT like a "live" tape to be left in the drive for long periods
of time. Who knows when a power failure will hit, who knows when the
drive will go awol. An unloaded tape, immediately after backup, is safe
from other folks, as well as the server, writing onto it.

Gene Heskett wrote:

> I'd druther it didn't.  By leaving the tape online, the display

Re: Unloading tapes when task done ?

[Uncle George]

I dunno either, will it work on a 6 drive auto changer/tape library?
/gat

> Dunno,
> my crontab sez:
> 0 18 * * 1-5 /volume/amanda/sbin/amdump lto; mt -f /dev/rmt/3h rewoffl
> 
> works like a charm.
> 
>

Unloading tapes when task done ?

[Uncle George]

It seems like when the whole procedure ( whether its labeling tape(s),
amchecking tape, or amdumping ) is complete, the tape is left in the
tape drive in an on-line state. 
Is there some reason why the tape is not at least rewind-offlined, or
for tape changer folks rewoffl/unload'ed back to the carousel slot when
the job/task is finished?

Just my 2 cents

Re: DLT

[Uncle George]

technically yes. A DLT-IV tape is the tape of choice on a quantum 7000,
and quantum 8000. I do not know, however, if the tape that was written
with a 7000 series, and later re-used on an 8000 if it would be reliable
. I suspect that it should work.

But for a definitive answer, give www.quantum.com a call.

David Flood wrote:
> 
> Sorry if this subject is off topic but can you use a 40/80 DLT tape
> in a 35/70 DLT tape drive. Although we'd only be using it as a 35/70
> tape.
> 
> -
> David Flood
> Systems Administrator
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Tel: +44 (0)1224 262721
> The Robert Gordon University
> School of Computing
> St. Andrews Street
> Aberdeen
> -

Only 3 tapes in 7 tape changer gets scaned twice

[Uncle George]

I put 3 tapes in ( from a previous run ) with wrong labels ( ie they
look like they are correct but they are not )

What is interesting is that the autochanger goes through tape 1, 2, 3,
1, 2, 3, 1  looking for a label. Slots 1, 2, 3 have tapes. Slots 4, 5 ,
6 , 7 do not have any tapes. changer is chg-zd-mtx

Whats also interesting is the quick scan of the "0 problems found" made
me believe everything was A-Ok. But No. No summary info for all
of the parts?

/gat

BTW 1)the patch for the 'spindle' problem appear(s) to be fixed.
2) The patch for calculating what can fit on ONE tape vs. partition
size appears to work now ( i get an error now )

[Amanda@kodak Amanda]$ amcheck confname
Amanda Tape Server Host Check
-
Holding disk /mnt/hdd4/amanda: 5806570 KB disk space available, using 5601770 
KBHolding disk /mnt/sda1/amanda: 1975122 KB disk space available, using 1678162 
KBamcheck-server: slot 1: date 20020326 label GatWorksSet103 (no match)
amcheck-server: slot 2: date Xlabel GatWorksSet107 (no match)
amcheck-server: slot 3: date Xlabel GatWorksSet106 (no match)
amcheck-server: slot 1: date 20020326 label GatWorksSet103 (no match)
amcheck-server: slot 2: date Xlabel GatWorksSet107 (no match)
amcheck-server: slot 3: date Xlabel GatWorksSet106 (no match)
amcheck-server: slot 1: date 20020326 label GatWorksSet103 (no match)
ERROR: label AmandaFullBackup3 or new tape not found in rack
   (expecting tape AmandaFullBackup3 or a new tape)
NOTE: skipping tape-writable test
Server check took 483.323 seconds

Amanda Backup Client Hosts Check

Client check: 1 host checked in 0.047 seconds, 0 problems found

(brought to you by Amanda 2.4.2p2)

Re: If estimated disk size > tape size

[Uncle George]

runtapes set to 7

INITIAL SCHEDULE (size 94289500):
  lx /mnt/hde4 pri 1 lev 0 size 69069340
  lx /mnt/hdg3 pri 1 lev 0 size 6060890
  lx /mnt/hdg2 pri 1 lev 0 size 5286010
  lx /mnt/hdg4 pri 1 lev 0 size 5186500
  lx /mnt/sdb2 pri 1 lev 0 size 4156550
  lx / pri 1 lev 0 size 1962280
  lx /mnt/sdb4 pri 1 lev 0 size 1810290
  lx /mnt/sda2 pri 1 lev 0 size 737320

DELAYING DUMPS IF NEEDED, total_size 94289500, tape length 21504
mark 2000
  delay: Total size now 94289500.



"John R. Jackson" wrote:
> 
> >Hummm, DLT tape set to 3mb ( 2 + .5  compression )
> >partition on /mnt/hde4 is 69578056k ( via df ) /mnt/hde4 'sendsizes' to
> >70727004160 ( 66GB, 4.6MB/s )
> >...
> >i guess i should ask why I didnt get any of these errors?
> 
> Don't know without more information.
> 
> Take a look at the amdump. file for the "got result for host" lines
> to make sure what planner was working with.
> 
> Then look for the "DELAYING DUMPS IF NEEDED" line, e.g.:
> 
>   DELAYING DUMPS IF NEEDED, total_size 33616007, tape length 55296000 mark 2000
> 
> This says the total estimated size was 33616007 KBytes, the tape length
> (including the runtapes multiplier) is 55296000 KBytes and a tape mark
> (space between each image) is 2000 KBytes.
> 
> What is your runtapes set to?
> 
> >If it hits EOT, then didnt sendsize & friends miscalculat?
> 
> Not necessarily.  If someone touch's a 30 GByte file that the estimate
> skipped over because it looked idle at that time, the dump will have to
> do it and that would throw everything out of whack.
> 
> >And is there any consideration on fitting a large partition onto one or
> >more tapes?
> 
> Definitely.  All it takes is a few weeks of dedicated programming time
> by someone and a whole lot of testing.
> 
> John R. Jackson, Technical Software Specialist, [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: If estimated disk size > tape size

[Uncle George]

Hummm, DLT tape set to 3mb ( 2 + .5  compression )
partition on /mnt/hde4 is 69578056k ( via df ) /mnt/hde4 'sendsizes' to
70727004160 ( 66GB, 4.6MB/s )

at 5am it tried to fit the (/mnt/hde4) partition onto the tail end of
the tape & EOT'd. At 8:30 it tried again onto the next tape. At 9am i
stopped it and posed this inquiry.

"John R. Jackson" wrote:
> 
> >will amanda tape out the data that cant fit onto that 40gig tape and
> >then onto the next tape OR will it start over again from the beginning (
> >as the docs currently say ) ...
> 
> If Amanda hits any tape error (including EOT) it will start the current
> image over, from the beginning, on the next tape.

If it hits EOT, then didnt sendsize & friends miscalculat?

> 
> >... If docs are correct, why does amanda bother bother
> >attempting to write any partition that has more data than the tape than
> >the tape can hold?
> 
> It doesn't.
> 
> >should'nt there be a "sorry can't do that" error?
> 
> There is.  If the estimate is larger than the tapetype length field
> you'll get one of these messages (depending on other settings):
> 
>   dump larger than tape, but cannot incremental dump skip-incr disk
>   dump larger than tape, but cannot incremental dump new disk
>   Dump larger than tape: full dump of XXX delayed.
>   dump larger than tape, skipping incremental

i guess i should ask why I didnt get any of these errors? 

And is there any consideration on fitting a large partition onto one or
more tapes?

If estimated disk size > tape size

[Uncle George]

will amanda tape out the data that cant fit onto that 40gig tape and
then onto the next tape OR will it start over again from the beginning (
as the docs currently say ) and try to fit something that will never fit
onto that tape?. If docs are correct, why does amanda bother bother
attempting to write any partition that has more data than the tape than
the tape can hold?

should'nt there be a "sorry can't do that" error?

/gat

Re: i think that there is a (small) error in amanda(8) docs

[Uncle George]

Generally, u try the program. After a week of fustration, maybe then you
think that you should have RTFM first. But so far neither method is
doing me tooo mcchhh ggg. One might
say that I can tar out the 69gb much faster with a simpler tar.
Eventually i will find the 'key' to your methods of madness, and i will
be content.

> Wow, you must be really bored to actually be reading the documentation
> and finding bugs like that :-) :-) :-).
> 

BTW. It seems that the sendsize finishes in a little over 4 hours. The
send-backup gets an idle timeout ( which from the log is ~1802 seconds )
which is surprising in that it  idle'd for a half hour - i suspect
something is amiss, but i'm not at that part of the manual yet. :-/

Re: sendsize appears to rerun disklist twice?

[Uncle George]

thats interesting, considering that i have "dumpcycle 0 " and "dumpcycle
0" in dumptype global.
Is there a way to stop the second scan, third, 4th, and so on ?

"John R. Jackson" wrote:
> 
> >I waited 4 hours for /mnt/hde4 to complete the first run of sendsize.
> >When it completes it appears to run the sendsize again on /mnt/hde4.
> >This would take another 4 hours, and i'm wondering why?
> 
> Because the first request was for a level 0 and the second was for a
> level 1.  And Amanda may ask for a third estimate (level 2 in this case)
> if it's time (bumpdays) that a bump to the next level might be possible.
> 
> John R. Jackson, Technical Software Specialist, [EMAIL PROTECTED]

sendsize appears to rerun disklist twice?

[Uncle George]

I waited 4 hours for /mnt/hde4 to complete the first run of sendsize.
When it completes it appears to run the sendsize again on /mnt/hde4.
This would take another 4 hours, and i'm wondering why?
tar is 1.13.19
btw the "lx_mnt_hde4_0.new" does exist, but not just plain
"lx_mnt_hde4_0"

sendsize: getting size via gnutar for /mnt/hde4 level 1
sendsize-gnutar: error opening
/usr/local/var/amanda/gnutar-lists/lx_mnt_hde4_0: No such file or
directory
sendsize: spawning /usr/local/libexec/runtar in pipeline

__
sendsize: debug 1 pid 1588 ruid 501 euid 501 start time Fri Mar 29
05:04:12 2002
/usr/local/libexec/sendsize: version 2.4.2p2
calculating for amname '/mnt/hde4', dirname '/mnt/hde4'
calculating for amname '/mnt/hdg3', dirname '/mnt/hdg3'
sendsize: getting size via gnutar for /mnt/hde4 level 0
sendsize: getting size via gnutar for /mnt/hdg3 level 0
calculating for amname '/mnt/hdg2', dirname '/mnt/hdg2'
sendsize: spawning /usr/local/libexec/runtar in pipeline
sendsize: argument list: /bin/gtar --create --file /dev/null --directory
/mnt/hde4 --one-file-system --listed-incremental
/usr/local/var/amanda/gnutar-lists/lx_mnt_hde4_0.new --sparse
--ignore-failed-read --totals --exclude-from
/usr/local/etc/amanda/gtar/exclude.gtar .
sendsize: spawning /usr/local/libexec/runtar in pipeline
sendsize: argument list: /bin/gtar --create --file /dev/null --directory
/mnt/hdg3 --one-file-system --listed-incremental
/usr/local/var/amanda/gnutar-lists/lx_mnt_hdg3_0.new --sparse
--ignore-failed-read --totals --exclude-from
/usr/local/etc/amanda/gtar/exclude.gtar .
Total bytes written: 6206351360 (5.8GB, 852kB/s)
.
sendsize: getting size via gnutar for /mnt/hdg3 level 1
sendsize-gnutar: error opening
/usr/local/var/amanda/gnutar-lists/lx_mnt_hdg3_0: No such file or
directory
sendsize: spawning /usr/local/libexec/runtar in pipeline
sendsize: argument list: /bin/gtar --create --file /dev/null --directory
/mnt/hdg3 --one-file-system --listed-incremental
/usr/local/var/amanda/gnutar-lists/lx_mnt_hdg3_1.new --sparse
--ignore-failed-read --totals --exclude-from
/usr/local/etc/amanda/gtar/exclude.gtar .
Total bytes written: 6206351360 (5.8GB, 985kB/s)
.
calculating for amname '/mnt/hdg4', dirname '/mnt/hdg4'
sendsize: getting size via gnutar for /mnt/hdg2 level 0
sendsize: spawning /usr/local/libexec/runtar in pipeline
sendsize: argument list: /bin/gtar --create --file /dev/null --directory
/mnt/hdg2 --one-file-system --listed-incremental
/usr/local/var/amanda/gnutar-lists/lx_mnt_hdg2_0.new --sparse
--ignore-failed-read --totals --exclude-from
/usr/local/etc/amanda/gtar/exclude.gtar .
Total bytes written: 5412874240 (5.0GB, 21MB/s)
.
sendsize: getting size via gnutar for /mnt/hdg2 level 1
sendsize-gnutar: error opening
/usr/local/var/amanda/gnutar-lists/lx_mnt_hdg2_0: No such file or
directory
sendsize: spawning /usr/local/libexec/runtar in pipeline
sendsize: argument list: /bin/gtar --create --file /dev/null --directory
/mnt/hdg2 --one-file-system --listed-incremental
/usr/local/var/amanda/gnutar-lists/lx_mnt_hdg2_1.new --sparse
--ignore-failed-read --totals --exclude-from
/usr/local/etc/amanda/gtar/exclude.gtar .
Total bytes written: 5412874240 (5.0GB, 29MB/s)
.
calculating for amname '/mnt/sdb2', dirname '/mnt/sdb2'
sendsize: getting size via gnutar for /mnt/hdg4 level 0
sendsize: spawning /usr/local/libexec/runtar in pipeline
sendsize: argument list: /bin/gtar --create --file /dev/null --directory
/mnt/hdg4 --one-file-system --listed-incremental
/usr/local/var/amanda/gnutar-lists/lx_mnt_hdg4_0.new --sparse
--ignore-failed-read --totals --exclude-from
/usr/local/etc/amanda/gtar/exclude.gtar .
Total bytes written: 5310976000 (4.9GB, 22MB/s)
.
sendsize: getting size via gnutar for /mnt/hdg4 level 1
sendsize-gnutar: error opening
/usr/local/var/amanda/gnutar-lists/lx_mnt_hdg4_0: No such file or
directory
sendsize: spawning /usr/local/libexec/runtar in pipeline
sendsize: argument list: /bin/gtar --create --file /dev/null --directory
/mnt/hdg4 --one-file-system --listed-incremental
/usr/local/var/amanda/gnutar-lists/lx_mnt_hdg4_1.new --sparse
--ignore-failed-read --totals --exclude-from
/usr/local/etc/amanda/gtar/exclude.gtar .
Total bytes written: 5310976000 (4.9GB, 23MB/s)
.
sendsize: getting size via gnutar for /mnt/sdb2 level 0
calculating for amname '/mnt/sda2', dirname '/mnt/sda2'
sendsize: spawning /usr/local/libexec/runtar in pipeline
sendsize: argument list: /bin/gtar --create --file /dev/null --directory
/mnt/sdb2 --one-file-system --listed-incremental
/usr/local/var/amanda/gnutar-lists/lx_mnt_sdb2_0.new --sparse
--ignore-failed-read --totals --exclude-from
/usr/local/etc/amanda/gtar/exclude.gtar .
Total bytes written: 4256307200 (4.0GB, 5.2MB/s)
.
sendsize: getting size via gnutar for /mnt/sdb2 level 1
sendsize-gnutar: error opening
/usr/local/var/amanda/gnutar-lists/lx_mnt_sdb2_0: No such file or
directory
sendsize: spawning /usr/local/libexec/runtar 

i think that there is a (small) error in amanda(8) docs

[Uncle George]

shouldn';t the comment "DLT4000 tape drives with Compact-IV tapes" be
placed after the DLT4000-III tapetype ?


  define tapetype DLT4000-III {
  comment "DLT4000 tape drives with Compact-III tapes"
  length 12500 mbytes # 10 Gig tapes with some
compression
  filemark 2000 kbytes
  speed 1536 kps
  }
  define tapetype DLT4000-IV {
  comment "DLT4000 tape drives with Compact-IV tapes"
  DLT4000-III
  length 25000 mbytes # 20 Gig tapes with some
compression

i asked it to change label of tape in slot 6, but it erased slot 1 instead! :-{

[Uncle George]

There is no tape in slot 6, so I suppose ANY other tape would do . 
I suppose this is a bug.

[Amanda@kodak sbin]$ for i in  6; do ./amlabel -f confname
GatWorksSet16$i slot $i; done
labeling tape in slot 1 (/dev/nst0):
rewinding, reading label GatWorksSet161, tape is active
rewinding, writing label GatWorksSet166, checking label, done.
[Amanda@kodak sbin]$

Re: what does etimeout really represent

[Uncle George]

Sorry, for every NEW run, i would like a set of new logs just for that
run just so that i know are from just that run. from my 'novice' eyes,
its just to much data to figure out where the previous run completed,
and the new one began.

But if i ( ever ) get a complete backup ( after setting it for -6hrs ) i
will go back and put it back to 3600.

/gat

"John R. Jackson" wrote:
> 
> >... I had changed the time to be some 3600 ( an hour ) which,
> >if one beleives the man page, would leave some 8hours ( wall time ) for
> >all 8 partitions to complete.  ...
> 
> Right.  That's the way it's supposed to work, and the way it has worked
> for myself and others.
> 
>
> 
> So what do you suggest?

>From an admin point of view I would like every disk on my disklist to be
backed up. The time that it takes to do it is irrelevant. Time becomes
relevant if the avenues of communication is severed between the
parent/children ( maxdumps > 1 )  of sendsize, and the communication
between client and server becomes severed. How do u know that
communication has been lost ? would a 'ping' or keep-alive concept have
any use here ? 
But there are also times when the 'sizer' program may be stuck, spinning
to no usefull end. I suppose that in this unusual case/scenario it would
be up to the administrator to take the extraordinary action to determine
what is causing the 'sizer' failure ( ie is it a bug? is tar backing up
/dev/zero ?  )

dtimeout represents idle time, why cant etimeout also represent idle
time?

Re: what does etimeout really represent

[Uncle George]

Then my current impression is that the feature does not work - exactly
as stated.  There are a few file systems on one 'errant' system, where
one filesystem has taken over 224 minuts( wall time ) to complete just
the estimate. I had changed the time to be some 3600 ( an hour ) which,
if one beleives the man page, would leave some 8hours ( wall time ) for
all 8 partitions to complete. I think the log had 2 timeout errors of
some 3800. The longest, and the next to longest partition did not
complete :-{

I dont think that anyone wants to know who the 'planner' is, or
'sendsize' or even their relationship at a user, or administrative
level. But i suspect that one has to give the 'highest' possible
estimate on a per partition basis. 

Its not too rational for the observer program 'planner?' to multiply the
estimate if u can have multiple ( or even a single ) 'sendsize's running
on the client machine ( now set at 8 * 6hrs ) Its just too long to wait
for some failed communication! ( it also ruins the concept of a daily
backup )


"John R. Jackson" wrote:
> 
> >etimeout specifies that amount of time amdump will wait to hear back after
> >sending a sendsize request to a particular host.  At least, I think it's
> >per-host.
> 
> This is covered in the man page:
> 
>   Default:  300 seconds.  Amount of time per  disk  on  a
>   given  client that the planner step of amdump will wait
>   to get the dump size estimates.  For instance, with the
>   default  of  300  seconds  and  four disks on client A,
>   planner will wait up to 20 minutes for that machine.  A
>   negative value will be interpreted as a total amount of
>   time, instead of a per-disk value.
> 
> Note that, when positive, it is per disk.  When negative, it is per
> host (and the man page needs a minor tweak to make that point).
> 
> >Joshua Baker-LePain
> 
> John R. Jackson, Technical Software Specialist, [EMAIL PROTECTED]

what does etimeout really represent

[Uncle George]

does etimeout specify the time that "sendsize" will use to estimate the
time needed to do 'its thing', or does it represent the sum total of
time ( estimate & dumping ) of a filesystem ?

[Fwd: it did not complete, it took over 1.3 days to run out of 4 tapes!( 80gig uncompressed!)

[Uncle George]

 
--- Begin Message ---

apparently it did not complete all filesystems.

some appear to be network reliability problems. ( host reset by peer )
some appear to be that the server run out of time [ data timeout ]
some appear to be because is cant open a jibberish filename !.

are there things i can do ?
/gat

BTW i get a lot of these messages. I had to up the loop count in xinetd
so that it would not be disabled.

BTW#2 is this the right group, or would it be better in the amanda/users
group


ar 24 08:06:33 MyLaptop amandad[24106]: error receiving message: timeout
Mar 24 08:06:33 MyLaptop amandad[24105]: error receiving message:
timeout
Mar 24 08:06:33 MyLaptop amandad[24111]: error receiving message:
timeout
Mar 24 08:06:33 MyLaptop amandad[24118]: error receiving message:
timeout
Mar 24 08:06:33 MyLaptop amandad[24121]: error receiving message:
timeout
Mar 24 08:06:33 MyLaptop amandad[24119]: error receiving message:
timeout
Mar 24 08:06:33 MyLaptop amandad[24117]: error receiving message:
timeout
Mar 24 08:06:33 MyLaptop amandad[24115]: error receiving message:
timeout
Mar 24 08:06:33 MyLaptop amandad[24114]: error receiving message:
timeout
Mar 24 08:06:33 MyLaptop amandad[24122]: error receiving message:
timeout
Mar 24 08:06:33 MyLaptop amandad[24120]: error receiving message:
timeout
Mar 24 08:06:33 MyLaptop amandad[24116]: error receiving message:
timeout
Mar 24 08:06:33 MyLaptop amandad[24113]: error receiving message:
timeout
Mar 24 08:06:33 MyLaptop amandad[3275]: error receiving message: timeout
Mar


Mail.amanda
Description: Binary data
--- End Message ---

amplot

[Ross George]

Does anybody use the graphical capabilities of amanda (i.e. amplot)?
I wonder if it is worth using this feature.

Regards,
Ross.

DDS3 Stacker

[Ross George]

Hi all,
I am using amanda with an HP Surestore 24x6 DDS-3 autoloader. Amanda is working well 
with this configuration, except that tape one is problematic, especially when moving 
from tape 6 to tape 1. Surprisingly, moving from say tape 3 to tape 1  seems to work 
more reliably. I've tried various new tapes, but it still fails. 

has anyone else had this problem, or do I have a dodgy piece of hardware?

thanks,
Ross.

Dump reports negative disk size

[Ross George]

When I run amdump, the following message appears (presumably due to the 
hard drive being too big):
The system is FreeBSD 4.0, with Amanda 2.4.2p2.

thanks,
Ross.

FAILED AND STRANGE DUMP DETAILS:

/-- xxx /exports/mail lev 0 FAILED [/sbin/dump returned 3]
sendbackup: start [xxx.xxx.net.au:/exports/mail level 0]
sendbackup: info BACKUP=/sbin/dump
sendbackup: info RECOVER_CMD=/sbin/restore -f... -
sendbackup: info end
|   DUMP: Date of this level 0 dump: Wed Nov 28 12:42:34 2001
|   DUMP: Date of last level 0 dump: the epoch
|   DUMP: Dumping /dev/rmlxd0c (/exports/mail) to standard output
|   DUMP: mapping (Pass I) [regular files]
|   DUMP: mapping (Pass II) [directories]
|   DUMP: estimated 22194864 tape blocks.
|   DUMP: dumping (Pass III) [directories]
|   DUMP: dumping (Pass IV) [regular files]
|   DUMP: 1.60% done, finished in 5:07
?   DUMP: read error from /dev/rmlxd0c: Invalid argument: [block 
-225809704]: count=7168
?   DUMP: read error from /dev/rmlxd0c: Invalid argument: [sector 
-225809704]: count=512
?   DUMP: read error from /dev/rmlxd0c: Invalid argument: [sector 
-225809703]: count=512
?   DUMP: read error from /dev/rmlxd0c: Invalid argument: [sector 
-225809702]: count=512
?   DUMP: read error from /dev/rmlxd0c: Invalid argument: [sector 
-225809701]: count=512
?   DUMP: read error from /dev/rmlxd0c: Invalid argument: [sector 
-225809700]: count=512

RE: 'secure' amanda?

[George Kearns]

I would think the second obvious thing would be to tunnel it through
SSH...  I've never done this, though, and I don't even know if it would
be possible.

JM2C.

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Harald Koch
Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2001 11:16 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: 'secure' amanda?

Has anyone figured out how to run Amanda securely over the Internet? I
have a single server at a webhosting site that I'd like to backup as
part of the rest of my network backup. For various reasons, I can't do
the obvious and setup a VPN.

Suggestions welcome...

-- 
Harald Koch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

"It takes a child to raze a village."
-Michael T. Fry

unsubscribe

[Hsu George-CGH039]

unsubscribe

RE: Backup of NT share

[George Kearns]

Michael,

This first thing I would do is double-check the permissions on your NT
box.. make sure that the computer is actually sharing the folder you
wish to backup, and that your backup server is allowed to "see" it. A
good test of this would be to try to connect to that share using
smbclient.. if you can't do that, you can be assured that Amanda can't
either. ;)

JM2C.

G.

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Michael P. Blinn
Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2001 7:07 AM
To: Joshua Baker-LePain
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Backup of NT share

> > > OK, it's not even trying to launch selfcheck.  Does
> > > /usr/local/libexec/selfcheck exist?  What do your /etc/inetd.conf
(or
> > > /etc/xinetd.d/am*) entries look like?  How exactly did you
./configure
> > > amanda on backup?
> >
> > selfcheck exists
> >
> > inetd.conf:
> > amanda dgram   udp wait backup /usr/local/libexec/amandad
amandad
> > amandaidx  stream  tcp nowait backup /usr/local/libexec/amindexd
amindexd
> > amidxtape  stream  tcp nowait backup /usr/local/libexec/amidxtaped
> > amidxtaped
>
> And you've restarted inetd, right?  That's my main suspicion at this
> point.

Yes. Let me be clear.. this backup server worked jst fine for
backing up
its local disks, as well as a remote linux machine - This machine has
been
restarted probably ten times during the course of this dialogue and I've
manually restarted inetd.conf plenty myself as well ;)  Here's proof!

backup:~# netstat -na |grep 1008
tcp0  0 0.0.0.0:10083   0.0.0.0:*
LISTEN
tcp0  0 0.0.0.0:10082   0.0.0.0:*
LISTEN
udp0  0 0.0.0.0:10080   0.0.0.0:*

To reiterate the situation: Backup machine w/ a tape drive, holding
disk,
and samba, is trying to back up a linux machine and an NT share on a
separate computer. - The linux backup works just fine - The NT share is
what
is screwing up amcheck (or so goes my theory) - I can paste in my
amandapass
and amanda.conf and disklist files again if you'd like, but they haven't
changed since my original 'help!' email to the list. - if I remove the
NT
share disklist entry (the entry is: backup //ntserver/sys/users nt-comp
where nt-comp is a dumptype I made that is 'user-tar' and 'compress
server
fast') then the backup of the linux machine and amcheck goes off without
a
hitch. - if I leave it in, the tape server check takes 20 seconds and
complains about nothing.. then there's a 15 second wait and I get the
'selfcheck request timed out.  Host down?'. Do I have to mount the
//ntserver/sys share first? -- Is it Good and OK to pass a subdirectory
to
the path to mount, or...?

> Do any other files get created in /tmp/amanda on backup when you try
to
> run amcheck?  There should be a amandad*debug and a selfcheck*debug,
if
> all is going well.

No. There is ONLY the one file that I pasted into the last email to the
list..   it is /tmp/amanda/amcheck.{timestamp}.debug and it looks like
this:

amcheck: debug 1 pid 619 ruid 34 euid 0 start time Thu Oct 4 15:24 :37
2001
amcheck: dgram_bind: sofket bound to 0.0.0.0.1008
amcheck: pid 619 finish time Thu Oct 4 15:25:07 2001

Again, many thanks for continued support,
  Michael Blinn
  People Places, Inc.

Re: How to do Incrementals

[George Kelbley]

Its been said repeatedly on this list, that one of the hardest things to
learn about amanda, is to trust it.  We've been using it in our shop for
years and it has *never* let us down.  It will tell you through the
reports it generates if you are asking too much of it so you can adjust
the configuration, add tapes, whatever.

Re: missing files

[George Herson]

"John R. Jackson" wrote:
> 
> >What shows an error occurred?  ...
> 
> By "error" I meant you didn't see all the entries in amrecover that you
> expected to see.  There isn't anything in the sendbackup*debug file to
> indicate what went wrong (or even that anything did go wrong).  The more
> useful place to look is the index file (see below).

Thanks for this complete response but you really should have said so in
the first place, esp'ly before firing off a bunch of (testy)
questions.   Anyway, the answer to your quandary is that I didn't
install indexing.  The INSTALL instructions say "If you are going to use
the indexing capabilities of Amanda, then add these to your inetd.conf
... amandaidx stream  amidxtape stream ... amidxtaped" (Section
2.1.E.) which indicates its installation and use is optional.  Unlike
designers of a certain piece of software, i believe in the the KISS
principle and was trying to get a little backup working before making an
even more complicated mess.

I'm pretty sure i won't be using Amanda now, so yes, i am "just testing"
at this point, but after what is by all appearances a wasted 2 weeks, i
thought it'd be reasonable to pursue finding out why Amanda/tar skipped
6 of 10 items (counting empty directories) in a small, single directory
backup.  For what its worth, my suspicion is still that Amanda has a
problem correctly creating and saving the tar --listed-incremental file
in some situations, eg w/.files when indexing is off.  I'm not prepared
to postulate an infinite worlds hypothesis and test for all possibilites
(or study source code) though, so i'm hoping someone has a better clue.

george

> >I am not cleaning out everything between tests.  I don't know how to do
> >that or what that means.
> 
> Since you're having amrecover/index problems, the important thing to
> remove is all the index files related to the test.  Run "amgetconf
>  indexdir" to see where the top of the index directory is, then
> cd to the host directory within there and then cd to the disk directory
> within that.  Remove all the *.gz files.  Then when you run another test
> you can be sure amrecover (amindexd) isn't see old data by mistake.
> 
> You can zcat the most recent file Amanda creates to see what amrecover
> will have to work with.  If you see all the files you expect to, but
> amrecover doesn't show them, then that's one kind of problem (with the
> index file itself or amrecover).  If you don't see the files you expect,
> then that's a problem with the backup itself.
>

sendbackup*debug

[George Herson]

>"John R. Jackson" wrote:

> > >What are the complete contents a typical /tmp/amanda/sendbackup*debug
> > >file for one of the failed runs?

> >Don't have any from a failed run. Below is my only sendbackup*debug
> >file, which is from the successful run.  
> > 
> ># cat /tmp/amanda/sendbackup*debug
> >sendbackup: debug 1 pid 17143 ruid 507 euid 507 start time Fri May  4
> >20:45:05 2001
> >/usr/local/libexec/sendbackup: version 2.4.2p2
> >sendbackup: got input request: GNUTAR /home/amanda 0 1970:1:1:0:0:0
> >OPTIONS |;bsd-auth;
> >  parsed request as: program `GNUTAR'
> > disk `/home/amanda'
> > lev 0
> > since 1970:1:1:0:0:0
> > opt `|;bsd-auth;'
> >sendbackup: try_socksize: send buffer size is 65536
> >sendbackup: stream_server: waiting for connection: 0.0.0.0.2865
> >sendbackup: stream_server: waiting for connection: 0.0.0.0.2866
> >  waiting for connect on 2865, then 2866
> >sendbackup: stream_accept: connection from 192.168.1.100.2867
> >sendbackup: stream_accept: connection from 192.168.1.100.2868
> >  got all connections
> >sendbackup-gnutar: doing level 0 dump as listed-incremental to
> >/usr/local/var/amanda/gnutar-lists/dellmachine_home_amanda_0.new
> >sendbackup-gnutar: doing level 0 dump from date: 1970-01-01  0:00:00 
> > GMT
> >sendbackup: spawning /usr/local/libexec/runtar in pipeline
> >sendbackup: argument list: gtar --create --file - --directory
> >/home/amanda --one-file-system --listed-incremental
> >/usr/local/var/amanda/gnutar-lists/dellmachine_home_amanda_0.new
> >--sparse --ignore-failed-read --totals .
> >sendbackup-gnutar: /usr/local/libexec/runtar: pid 17144
> >sendbackup: pid 17143 finish time Fri May  4 20:45:05 2001

> ... This looks just like a failed run.
> I didn't think this ever worked for you. ...

Can you pls tell me what gives this away as a failed run?  To me, it
looks very much like a sendbackup*debug from a successful run (i have my
sources ;).  The time elapsed is small because only a very small
directory was involved.

thank you,
george

Re: missing files

[George Herson]

"John R. Jackson" wrote:
> 
> >...  (How do i put a tape back to inactive status? I tried
> >re-labeling, but couldn't: "tape is active".)
> 
> Either use "-f" on amlabel, or use amrmtape.

Worked, thx.

> >Don't have any from a failed run. Below is my only sendbackup*debug
> >file, which is from the successful run.
> 
> Now I'm completely confused.  This looks just like a failed run.
> I didn't think this ever worked for you.  Are you saying sometimes it
> does and sometimes it doesn't?
> 
> Are you just doing this for testing?  Are you cleaning everything
> out between tests?  Maybe one of them did fail but you're seeing old
> information even when it now works?

What shows an error occurred?  That sendbackup*debug doesn't mention an
error or warning, the email afterwards looks friendly, and a backup did
occur (just not a complete one),  so i called it a successful run.  If
you see the format of the sendbackup*debug file as indicating an error,
though, you of course know better. 

I haven't done anymore Amanda tests since that pseudo-successful run
last Friday.  Since then i've been trying, with your help, to figure out
why it was not complete.  

I am not cleaning out everything between tests.  I don't know how to do
that or what that means.  

I know that that sendbackup*debug is my only one and is from the
"successful" run, because of its file date.  

I was trying to get Amanda working before moving on but i don't need
to.  Let's drop it.

thx anyway.
george

Response to r.f.c.: Suggestions

[George Herson]

hi.  Since the Amanda 2.4.2 INSTALL file requests "PLEASE send mail to
[EMAIL PROTECTED] if you have any comments", i made a few
suggestions/notes during my install.

First, though, in the INSTALL or README, say that understanding all one
should of Amanda is not trivial, and that Amanda is not appropriate for
every situation where computers outnumber tape drives.  For my
2-computer setup, for example, using just NFS and tar is far, far
simpler.

Replace 2.1.B.'s example config directory,
/usr/local/etc/amanda/confname, with one that exists by default
(/usr/local/etc/amanda didn't exist).  It's hard for the 1st time
installer to figure out the best place for these things.

Where appropriate in INSTALL, inform the installer to make use of
disklist, amlabel, and amcheck (not just re:crontab), and to see each's
(and Amanda's) man page for how.

Consider moving section 2.1.C to the end.  Most people will want amanda
working before adding it to their crontab.

In section 2.2.A, mention that .amandahosts uses the same format as
.rhosts, and give an example line.

Use a different name for either the FAQ file or the db at 
http://amanda.sourceforge.net/fom-serve/cache/1.html because calling
them both "FAQ" is confusing.

Though she's more than i can handle at the present, for the future,
thank u for keeping amanda free and well-supported.

george herson

Re: Amanda Disaster Recovery...

[George Herson]

hi. If you're running Linux and want to buy a disaster recovery cdrom
that includes amanda, the book _Linux Problem Solver_ by Brian Ward, No
Starch Press, includes one.

george herson

Nicki Messerschmidt wrote:
> 
> Hi folks,
> I'm runnig several Amanda hosts and an Amanda server. Everything works fine,
> but...
> theres one thing I really don't know how to do the simplest possible way:
> How to revocer an Amanda Client if the whole disk is corrupt and I have to
> replace it.
> Is there a simple method without installing a complete new linux and then
> amanda?
> I know how to restore files with amrecover and amrestore, never done it via
> dd...
> 
> In hope for a positive answer
> Nicki Messerschmidt

Re: missing files

[George Herson]

"John R. Jackson" wrote:
> 
> >I got all nine items of my /home/amanda directory archived, unlike when
> >amdump ran it with option --listed-incremental
> >/usr/local/var/amanda/gnutar-lists/dellmachine_home_amanda_0.new.  What
> >does this mean?
> 
> I don't know what it means yet, except that tar is probably OK, it's
> just something about the way Amanda is calling it.
> 
> What does amcheck have to say about your system?

Amcheck has no complaints, including with the write test, though it was
skipped below.  (How do i put a tape back to inactive status? I tried
re-labeling, but couldn't: "tape is active".)

# /usr/local/sbin/amcheck Dell-Full
Amanda Tape Server Host Check
-
Holding disk /dumps/amanda: 2205816 KB disk space available, that's
plenty
ERROR: cannot overwrite active tape Dell-Full010503
   (expecting a new tape)
NOTE: skipping tape-writable test
Server check took 12.971 seconds

Amanda Backup Client Hosts Check

Client check: 1 host checked in 2.345 seconds, 0 problems found

(brought to you by Amanda 2.4.2p2)

 
> Does your Amanda user have sufficient permissions to create files in
> /usr/local/var/amanda/gnutar-lists?

That dir is amanda owned and operated.

> What are the complete contents a typical /tmp/amanda/sendbackup*debug
> file for one of the failed runs?

Don't have any from a failed run. Below is my only sendbackup*debug
file, which is from the successful run.  

# cat /tmp/amanda/sendbackup*debug
sendbackup: debug 1 pid 17143 ruid 507 euid 507 start time Fri May  4
20:45:05 2001
/usr/local/libexec/sendbackup: version 2.4.2p2
sendbackup: got input request: GNUTAR /home/amanda 0 1970:1:1:0:0:0
OPTIONS |;bsd-auth;
  parsed request as: program `GNUTAR'
 disk `/home/amanda'
 lev 0
 since 1970:1:1:0:0:0
 opt `|;bsd-auth;'
sendbackup: try_socksize: send buffer size is 65536
sendbackup: stream_server: waiting for connection: 0.0.0.0.2865
sendbackup: stream_server: waiting for connection: 0.0.0.0.2866
  waiting for connect on 2865, then 2866
sendbackup: stream_accept: connection from 192.168.1.100.2867
sendbackup: stream_accept: connection from 192.168.1.100.2868
  got all connections
sendbackup-gnutar: doing level 0 dump as listed-incremental to
/usr/local/var/amanda/gnutar-lists/dellmachine_home_amanda_0.new
sendbackup-gnutar: doing level 0 dump from date: 1970-01-01  0:00:00 GMT
sendbackup: spawning /usr/local/libexec/runtar in pipeline
sendbackup: argument list: gtar --create --file - --directory
/home/amanda --one-file-system --listed-incremental
/usr/local/var/amanda/gnutar-lists/dellmachine_home_amanda_0.new
--sparse --ignore-failed-read --totals .
sendbackup-gnutar: /usr/local/libexec/runtar: pid 17144
sendbackup: pid 17143 finish time Fri May  4 20:45:05 2001

thx,
george

Re: missing files

[George Herson]

"John R. Jackson" wrote:
> 
> >In a test, i removed the --listed-incremental /usr/amanda_0.new
> >option, and tar archived all my files, just how i like it.  Why does
> >Amanda put that option there?  ...
> 
> Ummm, because that's required to do incremental backups.  :-)
> 
> >And is it feasible/desirable to make it go
> >away for at least level 0 backups?
> 
> Only if you don't want to do incrementals (in other words, no).
> 
> For full dumps, as I recall, Amanda creates an empty file and gives that
> to gtar with --listed-incremental.  You might try something like this:
> 
>   cp /dev/null /tmp/my-li-file
>   gtar ... --listed-incremental /tmp/my-li-file ...
> 
> and see what you get.

I got all nine items of my /home/amanda directory archived, unlike when
amdump ran it with option --listed-incremental
/usr/local/var/amanda/gnutar-lists/dellmachine_home_amanda_0.new.  What
does this mean?

> 
> >Another question:  Why doesn't that /usr/...amanda_0.new file exist?  I
> >have only a
> >/usr/local/var/amanda/gnutar-lists/dellmachine_home_amanda_0 file, with
> >contents 989184075
> >773 374412 ./.xauth).
> 
> It probably did exist at the time Amanda ran.  The ".new" in the name
> is a clue that Amanda is using that name and if everything goes right,
> it is renamed to the "real" name (without the ".new").

Good to know, thx.
 
> Based on what you've posted above, you were trying to back up something
> called /home/amanda, right?  Is that an actual home directory?  It looks
> like it is based on the listed incremental file which only lists one
> item, .xauth, and that's the kind of thing I'd expect to see inside a
> home directory.
> 

Yes, /home/amanda, whose contents are these files:
drwx--3 amanda   amanda   4096 May  4 13:13 .
drwxr-xr-x   11 root root 4096 Apr 27 13:45 ..
-rw-rw-r--1 amanda   amanda 46 May  4 13:09 .amandahosts
-rw-rw-r--1 amanda   amanda 21 Apr 30 16:07 .amandahosts~
-rw---1 amanda   amanda   6984 May  7 15:09 .bash_history
-rw-r--r--1 amanda   amanda 24 Apr 27 13:45 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r--1 amanda   amanda230 Apr 27 13:45 .bash_profile
-rw-r--r--1 amanda   amanda124 Apr 27 13:45 .bashrc
-rwxr-xr-x1 amanda   amanda333 Apr 27 13:45 .emacs
-rw-r--r--1 amanda   amanda   3394 Apr 27 13:45 .screenrc
drwx--2 amanda   root 4096 Apr 30 14:20 .xauth

I still don't understand why files would be left out in my first
successful amdump, a backup reported as level 0 by the email amdump sent
afterwards.  Level 0 is always supposed to mean all files, correct?  The
problem ppears to have something to do with the --listed-incremental
/usr/amanda_0.new option, because all files are backed up when it is
removed from the command.

As i posted Friday, what appeared on the tape after the amdump was only
four items:
# tar tvv
-rw-r--r-- amanda/amanda   230 2001-04-27 13:45 ./.bash_profile
-rw-r--r-- amanda/amanda   124 2001-04-27 13:45 ./.bashrc
-rwxr-xr-x amanda/amanda   333 2001-04-27 13:45 ./.emacs
-rw-r--r-- amanda/amanda  3394 2001-04-27 13:45 ./.screenrc

thanks alot,
george

Re: missing files

[George Herson]

"John R. Jackson" wrote:
> 
> >Is the actual (eg, tar) command used by amdump recorded?  Where?
> 
> /tmp/amanda/sendsize*debug and /tmp/amanda/sendbackup*debug on the client.
>
> > george 

Thanks.  I didn't know that because the sendsize*debug files i looked
inside didn't have the tar options because amdump wasn't getting that
far.

So here's the tar command amanda used:
sendsize: argument list: /bin/gtar --create --file /dev/null --directory
/home/amanda --one-file-system --listed-incremental
/usr/local/var/amanda/gnutar-lists/dellmachine_home_amanda_0.new
--sparse --ignore-failed-read --totals .

In a test, i removed the --listed-incremental /usr/amanda_0.new
option, and tar archived all my files, just how i like it.  Why does
Amanda put that option there? And is it feasible/desirable to make it go
away for at least level 0 backups?

Another question:  Why doesn't that /usr/...amanda_0.new file exist?  I
have only a 
/usr/local/var/amanda/gnutar-lists/dellmachine_home_amanda_0 file, with
contents 989184075
773 374412 ./.xauth).

thank u,
george

Re: missing files

[George Herson]

"John R. Jackson" wrote:
> 
> >But I just archived that dir to disk using tar and it got all the files
> >fine.
> 
> And did you do it the same way Amanda does, i.e. with all the listed
> incremental type flags it hands to GNU tar?  That's where a lot of the
> problems are, not in just basic tar operations.

Is the actual (eg, tar) command used by amdump recorded?  Where?

> >I downgraded my (gnu) tar to v1.12 last week because
> >http://www.amanda.org/patches.html says "there are a couple of other
> >problems in release 1.13 ... so its use is not recommended."
> 
> As I understand it (I don't use GNU tar), the latest (.17 or .19)
> versions are probably OK.  We should probably update the web page.
> 
> But going back to 1.12 plus the Amanda patch (you did apply them, didn't
> you?) is also OK.

Yes, patch applied.

> In my (very public :-) opinion, you should **NOT** rewind or reload an
> Amanda tape, fsf to the "end" and then write some information, unless
> you really, really know what you're doing and can verify at least 10
> different ways that you're actually at the end of tape.

Good to know, thx.
 
> >george
> 
> John R. Jackson, Technical Software Specialist, [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: missing files

[George Herson]

"John R. Jackson" wrote:

> >But i have a question as to why, according to a tar on the tape afterwards,
> >only four out of the nine items in the directory to dump were actually
> >backed up.  ...
> 
> What version of GNU tar are you using?  If it's not at least 1.13.17
> (and probably 1.13.19 would be better), you should upgrade.

But I just archived that dir to disk using tar and it got all the files
fine. 

I downgraded my (gnu) tar to v1.12 last week because
http://www.amanda.org/patches.html says "there are a couple of other
problems in release 1.13 ... so its use is not recommended."
 
> Did Amanda do a full dump (level 0) or an incremental (level > 0)?

According to the email summary, L is 0. 

> >george
> 
> John R. Jackson, Technical Software Specialist, [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Also, is it safe to directly tar to an amanda-written tape w/o amanda or
might that mess up later attempts to amrestore from that tape?

thx,
george

missing files

[George Herson]

It worked!   I got a backup on tape and amdump sent me a success email!

The last problem i found by looking at sendsize*debug as you suggested: it
showed that it didn't expect /etc/amandates to be a directory so i deleted
it and made a _file_ with that name instead.  (amcheck didn't pick on this
problem.)  I also made a couple other small changes, for the record, not
sure if they helped any.

But i have a question as to why, according to a tar on the tape afterwards,
only four out of the nine items in the directory to dump were actually
backed up.  Here's the nine items in the dir:

# ls -l /home/amanda
total 44
drwx--3 amanda   amanda   4096 May  4 13:13 .
drwxr-xr-x   11 root root 4096 Apr 27 13:45 ..
-rw-rw-r--1 amanda   amanda 46 May  4 13:09 .amandahosts
-rw-rw-r--1 amanda   amanda 21 Apr 30 16:07 .amandahosts~
-rw---1 amanda   amanda   2388 May  2 18:26 .bash_history
-rw-r--r--1 amanda   amanda 24 Apr 27 13:45 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r--1 amanda   amanda230 Apr 27 13:45 .bash_profile
-rw-r--r--1 amanda   amanda124 Apr 27 13:45 .bashrc
-rwxr-xr-x1 amanda   amanda333 Apr 27 13:45 .emacs
-rw-r--r--1 amanda   amanda   3394 Apr 27 13:45 .screenrc
drwx--2 amanda   root 4096 Apr 30 14:20 .xauth

What appears on the tape after the amdump:
# tar tvv
-rw-r--r-- amanda/amanda   230 2001-04-27 13:45 ./.bash_profile
-rw-r--r-- amanda/amanda   124 2001-04-27 13:45 ./.bashrc
-rwxr-xr-x amanda/amanda   333 2001-04-27 13:45 ./.emacs
-rw-r--r-- amanda/amanda  3394 2001-04-27 13:45 ./.screenrc


Also, am I supposed to create a info file and directory for every line in
disklist?  For example, creating /var/log/amanda/curinfo/dellmachine/
_home_amanda/info was necessary to make an amcheck complaint go away.

thx again,
george

"John R. Jackson" wrote:

> >What causes missing results?
>
> Usually a timeout.  Take a look at /tmp/amanda/sendsize*debug on the
> client and figure out the total time (look at the first and last lines).
> Amanda allows five minutes per disk.  If that's not enough, crank up
> the etimeout value in amanda.conf.
>
> >george herson
>
> John R. Jackson, Technical Software Specialist, [EMAIL PROTECTED]

"missing result"

[George Herson]

Yes, i amlabel'ed the tape i'm using.
You were correct:  I didn't comment out the tpchanger definition on my
single-slotted server, sorry.

Now i'm up to an email failure report that says:  "FAILURE AND STRANGE DUMP
SUMMARY:
  dellmachin /home/amanda lev 0 FAILED [missing result for /home/amanda in
dellmachine response]"

What causes missing results?

My disklist is "dellmachine /home/amanda root-tar".

thx,
george herson

"John R. Jackson" wrote:

> >Thanks for your advice below (setting changerfile) as I am much further
> >along, past amlabel and amcheck and up to trying to use amdump.
>
> So you've amlabel'd all your tapes?
>
> >Amanda seems to thinks i have a tape changer ...
>
> You've apparently told it to use chg-manual in amanda.conf.  That's a
> "manual" tape changer, i.e. it uses all the Amanda changer hooks but
> expects to talk to a human to do the work.
>
> If you don't want to do that, comment out tpchanger and make sure tapedev
> points to your tape device.
>
> >when i enter "amdump
> >Dell-Full" I'm told to keep putting in more tapes.  Why?
>
> I don't know.  What's in /tmp/amanda/changer*debug?
>
> >george herson
>
> John R. Jackson, Technical Software Specialist, [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: amlabel not seeing tape

[George Herson]

John,

Thanks for your advice below (setting changerfile) as I am much further
along, past amlabel and amcheck and up to trying to use amdump.

Amanda seems to thinks i have a tape changer:  when i enter "amdump
Dell-Full" I'm told to keep putting in more tapes.  Why?
Here i'm simply taking out the same tape and re-inserting it:

insert tape into slot 1 and press return

insert tape into slot 2 and press return

insert tape into slot 3 and press return

insert tape into slot 4 and press return

Then I put in a fresh, blank tape and got:

insert tape into slot 5 and press return

^C'ing out and retrying produces much the same thing.  What could be
wrong?  I have very simple setup: 1 machine as both client and server, with
1 tape drive with 1 slot.   I have just "dellmachine /boot root-tar" in
disklist.

thank you,
george herson

"John R. Jackson" wrote:

> >(/usr/adm/amanda/changer-status-clean: No such file or directory):
>
> The Amanda changers now want to store three "state" files.  All the file
> names are based on the "changerfile" variable in your amanda.conf.
>
> My guess is you have not set that variable, it's defaulting to
> /usr/adm/amanda/changer and directory /usr/adm/amanda does not exist.
> This is not your fault -- I think some new ideas slipped in without
> fully comprehending their impact.  Sorry.
>
> Try setting "changerfile" to someplace Amanda can write, such as the
> directory that holds your tapelist file.  Make sure the name ends in
> "/changer" because the other names add a suffix on to that.
>
> For instance, if tapelist is in directory /usr/local/etc/amanda/xxx,
> add this to amanda.conf:
>
>   changerfile   "/usr/local/etc/amanda/xxx/changer"
>
> This will cause these files to be created:
>
>   /usr/local/etc/amanda/xxx/changer-clean
>   /usr/local/etc/amanda/xxx/changer-access
>   /usr/local/etc/amanda/xxx/changer-slot
>
> Or you can pick some other directory.  Just as long as the Amanda user
> has write access to it.
>
> >george herson
>
> John R. Jackson, Technical Software Specialist, [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: amlabel not seeing tape

[George Herson]

The below got amlabel working, thanks.  I'm not done, but i'm making
progress.  I'll post another question if i get stuck.

I didn't realize when i started on the Amanda install that i could just use
nfs to mount my second PC, and back up both my PCs at once with tar.   Any
reason not to do it this way, besides the security issue of having to load
nfsd on my internet-connected PC?

thx alot,
george herson

"John R. Jackson" wrote:

> >(/usr/adm/amanda/changer-status-clean: No such file or directory):
>
> The Amanda changers now want to store three "state" files.  All the file
> names are based on the "changerfile" variable in your amanda.conf.
>
> My guess is you have not set that variable, it's defaulting to
> /usr/adm/amanda/changer and directory /usr/adm/amanda does not exist.
> This is not your fault -- I think some new ideas slipped in without
> fully comprehending their impact.  Sorry.
>
> Try setting "changerfile" to someplace Amanda can write, such as the
> directory that holds your tapelist file.  Make sure the name ends in
> "/changer" because the other names add a suffix on to that.
>
> For instance, if tapelist is in directory /usr/local/etc/amanda/xxx,
> add this to amanda.conf:
>
>   changerfile   "/usr/local/etc/amanda/xxx/changer"
>
> This will cause these files to be created:
>
>   /usr/local/etc/amanda/xxx/changer-clean
>   /usr/local/etc/amanda/xxx/changer-access
>   /usr/local/etc/amanda/xxx/changer-slot
>
> Or you can pick some other directory.  Just as long as the Amanda user
> has write access to it.
>
> >george herson
>
> John R. Jackson, Technical Software Specialist, [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: amlabel not seeing tape

[George Herson]

"John R. Jackson" wrote:

> OK, give this patch a try.  --JJ
>
>   
>  Name: chg-manual.diff
>chg-manual.diff   Type: unspecified type (application/octet-stream)
>   Description: chg-manual.diff

Thanks alot for the custom patch!  I applied it.  Now, what does "amlabel: no
tape online" mean?  I have a tape loaded, and it's usable as is with tar.

# amlabel Dell-Full Dell-Full010430  shows:
labeling tape in slot /usr/local/libexec/chg-manual:
(/usr/adm/amanda/changer-status-clean: No such file or directory):
rewinding
amlabel: no tape online

# mt -f /dev/nht0 status  shows:
IDE-Tape (type code 0) ?
File number=0, block number=0.
mt_resid: 0, mt_erreg: 0x0
mt_dsreg: 0x200, mt_gstat: 0x0
General status bits on (0):

thank u,
george herson

Re: amlabel not seeing tape

[George Herson]

"John R. Jackson" wrote:
> 
> >I upgraded mt from 0.5b to 0.6 but the "insert tape into slot  and press
> >return"-loop problem remains.
> 
> Now you know why we're dumping dependency on mt in the next Amanda
> release.  Every vendor in the world generates a different output format
> and parsing them is next to impossible.
> 
> What happens if you unload the tape and run "mt -f /dev/nht0 status"?
> I need to see that output and compare it to the status output when you
> do have a tape loaded, then come up with a change to the regular
> expression to tell them apart.
> 
> Grumble, mutter, ...
> 
> >george herson
> 
> John R. Jackson, Technical Software Specialist, [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Ok, thanks.  

# mt -f /dev/nht0 status WITHOUT the tape:
/dev/nht0: Input/output error

# mt -f /dev/nht0 status WITH the tape loaded:
IDE-Tape (type code 0) ?
File number=0, block number=0.
mt_resid: 0, mt_erreg: 0x0
mt_dsreg: 0x200, mt_gstat: 0x0
General status bits on (0):


This tape drive is a Seagate STT32A ATAPI Minicartridge Drive (that
holds 9.55GB natively, on Travan-5 NS tapes).

george herson

Re: amlabel not seeing tape

[George Herson]

"Bort, Paul" wrote:

> My guess would be the "Unknown tape drive type" is the cause of the problem.
> The problem is that in between the "-> status" and the "-> loaded",
> chg-manual is running the "mt status" command and hoping to find "ONLINE" in
> its results. In my version of mt, ONLINE is one of the General Status Bits.
> Once mt understands your tape drive, chg-manual should start working.
>
> Do you have another version of mt?
>

I upgraded mt from 0.5b to 0.6 but the "insert tape into slot  and press
return"-loop problem remains.

Even though the  "Unknown tape drive type" went away.  Now,
# tail changer.debug  shows:
 -> loaded <>
 -> rewind /dev/nht0
 -> status /dev/nht0
IDE-Tape (type code 0) ?
File number=0, block number=0.
mt_resid: 0, mt_erreg: 0x0
mt_dsreg: 0x200, mt_gstat: 0x0
General status bits on (0):

 -> loaded <>

Might that "(type code 0) ?" indicate a problem?

# cat amlabel.20010501135216.debug shows:
amlabel: debug 1 pid 11047 ruid 507 euid 507 start time Tue May  1 13:52:16
2001

thank you,
george herson


>
> -Original Message-
> From: George Herson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2001 11:35 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: amlabel not seeing tape
>
> Hi. I'm trying to amlabel my Travan5 tape in my Linux 2.2.14-5.0
> machine but i get:  "insert tape into slot  and press return" in a
> loop.  Taking the tape out and putting it back in doesn't help.
> Pressing return just repeats the message.
> The exact command i'm using is:
> /usr/local/sbin/amlabel Dell-Full Dell-Full010430.
>
> More info:
> # cat /tmp/amanda/amlabel.20010430202942.debug shows:
> amlabel: debug 1 pid 9561 ruid 507 euid 507 start time Mon Apr 30
> 20:29:42 2001
>
> # tail /tmp/amanda/changer.debug shows:
>  -> rewind /dev/nht0
>  -> status /dev/nht0
> Unknown tape drive type (type code 0)
> File number=0, block number=0.
> mt_resid: 0, mt_erreg: 0x0
> mt_dsreg: 0x200, mt_gstat: 0x0
> General status bits on (0):
>
>  -> loaded <>
>  -> rewind /dev/nht0
>
> The tape, drive, and /dev/ht0 are known to work, with tar.
>
> Suggestions?  Thanks alot,
>
> george herson
>