tape driver info
Hi, We are plaining to by a new tape drive for our Amanda's backup system, here are the specifics, Marca: CERTANCE Cod: STDL62401LW-SS Description: 120/240 GB AUTOLOADER TapeStor DAT 240 - DDS4 External 6 slot Ultra2 SCSI LVD (include software Tapeware, Install poster, Power cable, Resource CD) But first would like to known if it is supported from Amanda Software in a Debian Testing environment. On the product's website there aren't this informations, expecially about the TapeStore, I still write to Certance technical support to ask it but notting comes back. So I am asking if anyone have informations about it Tanks Francesco Messere Viale Gramsci 12 PISA (PI) - Italy tel. +390502202287 - fax +3905024421 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Problem with amrecover
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Jon LaBadie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, Jan 22, 2005 at 02:45:40PM +0100, Sören Edzen wrote: Hi! I have problem using amrecover. I get the following output: amidxtaped: time 0.002: Ready to execv amrestore with: path = /usr/local/sbin/amrestore argv[0] = amrestore argv[1] = -p argv[2] = -h argv[3] = /dev/nst0 argv[4] = ^zampo.edzen.net$ argv[5] = ^/usr/local/cvsroot$ argv[6] = 20050115 As the exact amrestore command is shown, can you reproduce the error by running it manually? If so, it may be time to try and pull off manually some of the tape files and see if they are recorded correctly. This will involve using mt and dd commands. Then tar or dump on the result. -- Jon H. LaBadie [EMAIL PROTECTED] JG Computing 4455 Province Line Road(609) 252-0159 Princeton, NJ 08540-4322 (609) 683-7220 (fax) Hi I tried the exact amrestore command and got this: amrestore -p -h /dev/nst0 ^zampo.edzen.net$ ^/usr/local/cvsroot$ 20050204 amrestore: 0: skipping start of tape: date 20050202 label zampo102 amrestore: 1: skipping zampo.edzen.net._home_soredz_.mutt.20050202.0 amrestore: error reading file header: Input/output error How to restore with dd? mt is used to rewind the tape, right? Any ideas? I'm getting desperate. First I had trouble getting amanda to perform the backups. Then when I finally made it I cant restore anything.
RE: AIX guru's please
My problem has been resolved. I would like to take the time to say thank you to Jon LaBadie. He was very persistent in getting me the help I needed to resolve my problem. This is a summary Of my situation. I had Amanda 2.4.2p2 on AIX 5.1 ML6 working fine, when my system crashed and Had to be rebuilt from scratch. I work with developers, and they MUST GET SOME OF THERE CODE From those tapes, but I didn't have the indexes anymore (I should of gathered that information During my mksysb backups). Following instructions I received after submitting my problem to this User group, I pulled this information from tape: AMANDA: FILE 20041208 lightning /saa_dev lev 1 comp .gz program /usr/sbin/backup To restore, position tape at start of file and run: dd if=tape bs=32k skip=1 | /usr/bin/gzip -dc | usr/sbin/restore -f... - After further correspondence with this group, and Jon LaBadie in particular, I took the following steps to get my data back: dd if=/dev/rmt1.1 of=saabackup bs=32k conv=sync skip=1 (I had to pull the data from tape 1st, AIX didn't like me running the whole command at once) gunzip saabackup unzippedsaabackup (I unzipped the file) restore -xvf unzippedsaabackup This restored all the data I needed. Once again, thank you to everyone that helped me during this time of need. Kevin D. Alford
Re: Amrecover problems
I followed this sites example of doing a restore http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/ncrr/procedures/amrecover.html Also I got the correct filename/extension as I stated and the path in which the file was restored was correct as well. So this is what I did to add the file I wanted for those that wish to see.. amrecover add vpasswd Added /**/vpasswd amrecover extract Extracting files using tape drive /dev/st0 on host **. The following tapes are needed: DailySet15 Restoring files into directory /var/spool/amanda Continue? [Y/n]: y Jason From: Paul Bijnens [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2005 09:38:25 +0100 To: Jason Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Amrecover problems Jason Miller wrote: Has anyone ran across a issue while running amrecover where the file that is requested and extracted from recover is not at all the file you ended up with. The filename/extension are correct but the actual content is not at all what the original was. So to illustrate what I am trying to say here is my example ... Any insight on what I could have done wrong? You could at least show the commands you did? e.g. the filenames you entered, and the filenames you got instead, also including the path up to that file etc. (are there any strange characters in the filename: wildcards, spaces, Was it the correct tape that you inserted? etc. etc. -- Paul Bijnens, XplanationTel +32 16 397.511 Technologielaan 21 bus 2, B-3001 Leuven, BELGIUMFax +32 16 397.512 http://www.xplanation.com/ email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** * I think I've got the hang of it now: exit, ^D, ^C, ^\, ^Z, ^Q, F6, * * quit, ZZ, :q, :q!, M-Z, ^X^C, logoff, logout, close, bye, /bye, * * stop, end, F3, ~., ^]c, +++ ATH, disconnect, halt, abort, hangup, * * PF4, F20, ^X^X, :D::D, KJOB, F14-f-e, F8-e, kill -1 $$, shutdown, * * kill -9 1, Alt-F4, Ctrl-Alt-Del, AltGr-NumLock, Stop-A, ...* * ... Are you sure? ... YES ... Phew ... I'm out * ***
Re: tape driver info
On Friday 04 February 2005 03:53, fmessere wrote: Hi, We are plaining to by a new tape drive for our Amanda's backup system, here are the specifics, Marca: CERTANCE Cod: STDL62401LW-SS Description: 120/240 GB AUTOLOADER TapeStor DAT 240 - DDS4 External 6 slot Ultra2 SCSI LVD (include software Tapeware, Install poster, Power cable, Resource CD) All of which are probably windows based stuff (except the power cable of course) and of limited utility on a *nix-like system. But first would like to known if it is supported from Amanda Software in a Debian Testing environment. On the product's website there aren't this informations, expecially about the TapeStore, I still write to Certance technical support to ask it but notting comes back. So I am asking if anyone have informations about it Tanks I don't see any reason why amanda could not run the device. And having some experience running the older Seagate 4586n changers which used DDS2 tapes, I'd recommend you look for another format as the DDS tapes, while cheap, do not in practice come anywhere near their rated 100,000 passes, nor do the drives themselves. As far as amanda, and building amanda, we generally recommend it be built on-site rather than installed from a package so that all the configuration details can be made to fit your environment. I have a script I build each new snapshot with here that garantees functional continuity because each new version is built with the same options as the previous one. Its published on this list maybe once a month, so it should be easy to find in the lists archives. Francesco Messere Viale Gramsci 12 PISA (PI) - Italy tel. +390502202287 - fax +3905024421 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Cheers, Gene There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order. -Ed Howdershelt (Author) 99.32% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly Yahoo.com attorneys please note, additions to this message by Gene Heskett are: Copyright 2005 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
I specifically pointed out to the Exabyte tech support that I thought the Linux tools provided with the tape drive were Intel-specific and because I had an Alpha, it would not execute properly. I knew this because I had already tried to use them prior to calling Exabyte. I already had the latest firmware upgrades and tools ready as I was going to do this anyway. But, before I had tried it, I already had a call into Exabyte tech support to see if it was really necessary to upgrade the firmware in my case. This was 2-3 phone calls into their tech support. They finally returned my call and by this time I had already made significant progress. I agree that I should insist on getting a version of their utilities that will run on this Alpha/LInux machine. When talking with the tech support, he actually read the system requirements back to me as we looked at them together on the web and he pointed out it just says linux 2.4.x and does NOT specify particular arch. Indeed, the same tools are available in other OS besides Windows and Linux, so it should be fairly easy for them to recompile or provide the source so I can compile for my Alpha. I will make this request because I should not have to uncable and boot up an Intel machine specifically for this purpose. When you say cabling issues, does this include a separate scsi card specific for the tape drive ? I think my cable connections are good. The scsi card I have is a LSI Logic / Symbios Logic (formerly NCR) 53c875 (rev 04) All devices are indicating on boot up (dmesg) at 40 MB/s except the CD-Rom which is indicating 10 MB/s. I have 3 hard drives, 2 tape drives (including the new one having trouble), and 1 CD-Rom in this scsi chain. I have tried all three scsi drivers available for this card in the linux kernel 1) ncr53c8xx, 2) sym53c8xx, and 3) sym53c8xx-2. The ncr53c8xx driver seems to give the least problems, so I have concentrated on this one. As I said, the library (autoloader) seems to work correctly, but it is just the tape writing that is giving me problems at present. It is able to label the tapes, but not write a larger data set to the tape. On Thu, 2005-02-03 at 23:17 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote: On Thursday 03 February 2005 17:49, James D. Freels wrote: No. It should be still Alpha compatible. The problem is that the firmware upgrade utilities for Linux are binary-only so I cannot compile them for the alpha nor run them on the alpha. Are you saying its not a case of dd if=inputfile of=tape-device? They may have it wrapped up in something thats intel specific, but I'd almost bet a cold one that this intel specific loader does exactly that, particularly if its an admin program that has to be pointed at the file to be used for the upgrade itself. That doesn't mean you should jump right up and do it, but I'd sure be an inquisitive fly on the wall :) Talking to those folks like you might know what to do will often get the info even if they don't want to confirm it. Otherwise, I think if they insist on its being a wintel box that does the upgrade, I think I'd be a bit pushy about haveing them send someone out with the correct gear to do the upgrade if you don't have suitable gear on site, and definitely do it for nothing. It should have been uptodate when it was shipped IMO. I mean most changers are well above the 2000 dollar bill priceing range, some 10 to 20 times that price. For that you can reasonably expect it to work, or they should be very co-operative about remedying the situation since the loss of the sale isn't exactly pocket change to either of you. Use that leverage, politely, but use it. On Thu, 2005-02-03 at 16:19 -0500, Eric Siegerman wrote: On Thu, Feb 03, 2005 at 03:03:22PM -0500, James D. Freels wrote: Here is what [drive vendor's Tech Support said] is needed: 1) need a separate scsi chain; they said I already have too many scsi devices on this chain to make it reliable. See recent threads re. SCSI cables, bus lengths, etc. (Recent == last month or two). 2) need to upgrade the firmware in the autoloader to the latest version; this may not work on an alpha machine and more likely will only work from an Intel machine I sure hope you mean only that the upgrade process might need an Intel box. If that's the case, doing the firmware upgrades is the cheapest and probably easiest thing to try, even if you do have to do some temporary recabling (well, as long as you have an Intel box with a SCSI adapter...) If on the other hand you mean that, once upgraded, the unit might be less Alpha-compatible than it was before ... send the #!*~ thing back for a refund! :-) And thats your leverage. There are more or less accepted protocols to running one of these things, and if in their haste to make it a proprietary device so they have a locked in customer, they have seriously broken the protocols, you shouldn't want it anyway. What happens when you need to make a bare metal
make failed on mac os x
Hello, today i tried to compile amanda 2.4.4p4 from source on my mac os x 10.3.7 but it fails. The following error occured : In file included from conffile.c:42: diskfile.h:49: error: conflicting types for `host_t' /usr/include/mach/mach_types.h:103: error: previous declaration of `host_t' make[1]: *** [conffile.lo] Error 1 make: *** [all-recursive] Error 1 Anyone a clue ?
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
On Fri, 4 Feb 2005, James D. Freels wrote:
When you say cabling issues, does this include a separate scsi card
specific for the
tape drive ? I think my cable connections are good.
The cable may be too long, or not properly terminated.
The scsi card I have is a LSI Logic / Symbios Logic (formerly NCR)
53c875 (rev 04)
All devices are indicating on boot up (dmesg) at 40 MB/s except the
CD-Rom which
is indicating 10 MB/s. I have 3 hard drives, 2 tape drives (including
the new one
having trouble), and 1 CD-Rom in this scsi chain. I have tried all
three scsi drivers
available for this card in the linux kernel 1) ncr53c8xx, 2) sym53c8xx,
and 3) sym53c8xx-2.
The ncr53c8xx driver seems to give the least problems, so I have
concentrated on
this one. As I said, the library (autoloader) seems to work
The ncr53c8xx driver is the very old one, sym53c8xx-2 is the new one. Actually
I've used all 3 of them with a 53c875 on a Linux/PPC box. sym53c8xx-2 (the
preferred one) should work fine.
correctly, but it
is just the tape writing that is giving me problems at present. It is
able to label the tapes,
but not write a larger data set to the tape.
Is the tape drive the last device on the cable?
You already have 6 devices (7 incl. the SCSI adapter), so the cable cannot be
that long. How long is it?
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
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
The tape drive is within the VXA-2 Packet-Loader 1U rack mount. It is connected via an external
scsi cable that came with the drive. the unit also came with it's own terminator which is also plugged into the
packet loader. The packet-loader is the only device connected to the scsi card externaly.
Inside, the scsi card has both a scsi-1 and scsi-2 connector. The scsi-1 connector has a single device
connected (the CD-Rom). The scsi-2 connector has the rest of the devices connected on a single cable
(3 hard drives, 1 VXA-1 Exabyte tape drive). It is a fairly long cable, with about 8 inches of cable separating each
device. The last device on the cable is the VXA-1 tape drive followed by a termination on the cable itself.
I guess I could go back and try the sym53c8xx-2 driver with more conservative settings on the options and
test again.
On Fri, 2005-02-04 at 15:54 +0100, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:
On Fri, 4 Feb 2005, James D. Freels wrote:
When you say cabling issues, does this include a separate scsi card
specific for the
tape drive ? I think my cable connections are good.
The cable may be too long, or not properly terminated.
The scsi card I have is a LSI Logic / Symbios Logic (formerly NCR)
53c875 (rev 04)
All devices are indicating on boot up (dmesg) at 40 MB/s except the
CD-Rom which
is indicating 10 MB/s. I have 3 hard drives, 2 tape drives (including
the new one
having trouble), and 1 CD-Rom in this scsi chain. I have tried all
three scsi drivers
available for this card in the linux kernel 1) ncr53c8xx, 2) sym53c8xx,
and 3) sym53c8xx-2.
The ncr53c8xx driver seems to give the least problems, so I have
concentrated on
this one. As I said, the library (autoloader) seems to work
The ncr53c8xx driver is the very old one, sym53c8xx-2 is the new one. Actually
I've used all 3 of them with a 53c875 on a Linux/PPC box. sym53c8xx-2 (the
preferred one) should work fine.
correctly, but it
is just the tape writing that is giving me problems at present. It is
able to label the tapes,
but not write a larger data set to the tape.
Is the tape drive the last device on the cable?
You already have 6 devices (7 incl. the SCSI adapter), so the cable cannot be
that long. How long is it?
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
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
On Fri, 4 Feb 2005, James D. Freels wrote:
The tape drive is within the VXA-2 Packet-Loader 1U rack mount. It is
connected via an external
scsi cable that came with the drive. the unit also came with it's own
terminator which is also plugged into the
packet loader. The packet-loader is the only device connected to the
scsi card externaly.
Inside, the scsi card has both a scsi-1 and scsi-2 connector. The
You mean, a narrow and a wide connector?
scsi-1 connector has a single device
connected (the CD-Rom). The scsi-2 connector has the rest of the
devices connected on a single cable
(3 hard drives, 1 VXA-1 Exabyte tape drive). It is a fairly long cable,
with about 8 inches of cable separating each
device. The last device on the cable is the VXA-1 tape drive followed
by a termination on the cable itself.
So the cabling is your problem: you should use maximum 2 of the 3 connectors on
a SCSI card, since it's supposed to be a single long chain without branches.
It's the same on mine (I have one with internal narrow and wide, and external
wide connectors).
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
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
On Friday 04 February 2005 09:41, James D. Freels wrote: I specifically pointed out to the Exabyte tech support that I thought the Linux tools provided with the tape drive were Intel-specific and because I had an Alpha, it would not execute properly. I knew this because I had already tried to use them prior to calling Exabyte. I already had the latest firmware upgrades and tools ready as I was going to do this anyway. But, before I had tried it, I already had a call into Exabyte tech support to see if it was really necessary to upgrade the firmware in my case. This was 2-3 phone calls into their tech support. They finally returned my call and by this time I had already made significant progress. I agree that I should insist on getting a version of their utilities that will run on this Alpha/LInux machine. When talking with the tech support, he actually read the system requirements back to me as we looked at them together on the web and he pointed out it just says linux 2.4.x and does NOT specify particular arch. Indeed, the same tools are available in other OS besides Windows and Linux, so it should be fairly easy for them to recompile or provide the source so I can compile for my Alpha. I will make this request because I should not have to uncable and boot up an Intel machine specifically for this purpose. When you say cabling issues, does this include a separate scsi card specific for the tape drive ? I think my cable connections are good. I don't recall mentioning cableing issues, but its certainly possible given the widespread miss-understanding of the specifics of setting up a bus system thats actually a transmission line and MUST be properly terminated. Even then it may call for sacrifical virgins etc to make it work if the term power is substandard as delivered down the cable from the host. The scsi card I have is a LSI Logic / Symbios Logic (formerly NCR) 53c875 (rev 04) All devices are indicating on boot up (dmesg) at 40 MB/s except the CD-Rom which is indicating 10 MB/s. I have 3 hard drives, 2 tape drives (including the new one having trouble), and 1 CD-Rom in this scsi chain. I have tried all three scsi drivers available for this card in the linux kernel 1) ncr53c8xx, 2) sym53c8xx, and 3) sym53c8xx-2. The ncr53c8xx driver seems to give the least problems, so I have concentrated on this one. As I said, the library (autoloader) seems to work correctly, but it is just the tape writing that is giving me problems at present. It is able to label the tapes, but not write a larger data set to the tape. This does begin to have the flavor of cabling/term problems about it. Q: Are all devices on the cable with this tape drive the same width, eg all 50 pin or all 80 pin? Q: If this drive is not the last on the cable, and at the very end of the cable, have the drives terms been removed? Q: If this drive is a narrow drive (50 pin connectors) and the card a wide, 80 pin card, has the extra, unused lines of the cable been terminated? If so, where? Grab a meter, and check the voltage available on one of the data lines when the system is powered up but quiet. Anything less than 2.75 volts is going to require the virgins, or replacing the silicon isolation diode on the card with a much lower voltage drop schotkey type in order to get adequate term power. 3.0 volts there should be the target to shoot at. On Thu, 2005-02-03 at 23:17 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote: On Thursday 03 February 2005 17:49, James D. Freels wrote: No. It should be still Alpha compatible. The problem is that the firmware upgrade utilities for Linux are binary-only so I cannot compile them for the alpha nor run them on the alpha. Are you saying its not a case of dd if=inputfile of=tape-device? They may have it wrapped up in something thats intel specific, but I'd almost bet a cold one that this intel specific loader does exactly that, particularly if its an admin program that has to be pointed at the file to be used for the upgrade itself. That doesn't mean you should jump right up and do it, but I'd sure be an inquisitive fly on the wall :) Talking to those folks like you might know what to do will often get the info even if they don't want to confirm it. Otherwise, I think if they insist on its being a wintel box that does the upgrade, I think I'd be a bit pushy about haveing them send someone out with the correct gear to do the upgrade if you don't have suitable gear on site, and definitely do it for nothing. It should have been uptodate when it was shipped IMO. I mean most changers are well above the 2000 dollar bill priceing range, some 10 to 20 times that price. For that you can reasonably expect it to work, or they should be very co-operative about remedying the situation since the loss of the sale isn't exactly pocket change to either of you. Use that leverage, politely, but use it. On Thu, 2005-02-03 at 16:19 -0500, Eric Siegerman wrote: On
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
So, you think if I disconnected the CD-rom (as a test), this would resolve the problem ?
The CD-rom is seldom used accept for emergency boots.
Also, I just tried a kernel with the ncr53c8xx driver and ultra conservative settings (for example,
setting to asynchronous I/O) and it behaves better. This time when I load the tape, I do not
get the strange error message in my original posting. It actually completed a small amdump, but then
failed again on the larger amdump. So, an improvement, but no cigar ... yet.
Yes, this is a 50-pin narrow cable plugged to the cd-rom and the 80-pin wide cable plugged to the rest
of the devices. Come to think of it, the 50-pin is just out there; no termination. Hmmm... let's try
that next.
On Fri, 2005-02-04 at 16:12 +0100, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:
On Fri, 4 Feb 2005, James D. Freels wrote:
The tape drive is within the VXA-2 Packet-Loader 1U rack mount. It is
connected via an external
scsi cable that came with the drive. the unit also came with it's own
terminator which is also plugged into the
packet loader. The packet-loader is the only device connected to the
scsi card externaly.
Inside, the scsi card has both a scsi-1 and scsi-2 connector. The
You mean, a narrow and a wide connector?
scsi-1 connector has a single device
connected (the CD-Rom). The scsi-2 connector has the rest of the
devices connected on a single cable
(3 hard drives, 1 VXA-1 Exabyte tape drive). It is a fairly long cable,
with about 8 inches of cable separating each
device. The last device on the cable is the VXA-1 tape drive followed
by a termination on the cable itself.
So the cabling is your problem: you should use maximum 2 of the 3 connectors on
a SCSI card, since it's supposed to be a single long chain without branches.
It's the same on mine (I have one with internal narrow and wide, and external
wide connectors).
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
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
On Fri, 4 Feb 2005, James D. Freels wrote:
So, you think if I disconnected the CD-rom (as a test), this would
resolve the problem ?
Probably (I hope so).
Also, I just tried a kernel with the ncr53c8xx driver and ultra
conservative settings (for example,
setting to asynchronous I/O) and it behaves better. This time when I
load the tape, I do not
get the strange error message in my original posting. It actually
completed a small amdump, but then
failed again on the larger amdump. So, an improvement, but no cigar ...
yet.
Asynchronous mode makes less assumptions about the cable.
Yes, this is a 50-pin narrow cable plugged to the cd-rom and the 80-pin
wide cable plugged to the rest
of the devices. Come to think of it, the 50-pin is just out there; no
termination. Hmmm... let's try
that next.
Usually CD-ROM drives have a jumper to enable the internal termination.
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
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
On Friday 04 February 2005 10:12, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:
On Fri, 4 Feb 2005, James D. Freels wrote:
The tape drive is within the VXA-2 Packet-Loader 1U rack mount.
It is connected via an external
scsi cable that came with the drive. the unit also came with it's
own terminator which is also plugged into the
packet loader. The packet-loader is the only device connected to
the scsi card externaly.
Inside, the scsi card has both a scsi-1 and scsi-2 connector. The
You mean, a narrow and a wide connector?
scsi-1 connector has a single device
connected (the CD-Rom). The scsi-2 connector has the rest of the
devices connected on a single cable
(3 hard drives, 1 VXA-1 Exabyte tape drive). It is a fairly long
cable, with about 8 inches of cable separating each
device. The last device on the cable is the VXA-1 tape drive
followed by a termination on the cable itself.
So the cabling is your problem: you should use maximum 2 of the 3
connectors on a SCSI card, since it's supposed to be a single long
chain without branches.
Said another way, that card may well have the narrow connector in
parallel with the wider one, and if thats the case, serious term
problems are in store. FWIW Geert, all 7 connectors on a given cable
can be used, provided the terms are removed from every device but the
last one, and the last device is truely on the end of the cable. And
the term power supplied is up to specs. The 4.3 to 4.4 volts you get
by way of the average cards isolation diode isn't spec by the .6
to .7 volts missing due to that isolation diode.
Now, where both the internal connectors on the card and the external
connector are in use as this person indicates, then the card, which
may have automatic terminations, must terminate ONLY those lines of
the wide bus that do not go on out via the rear panel connector to
any narrow devices at that end of the cable. The card, as far as the
original 8 bit data bus portion of the 50 pin cable, effectively
becomes a wired or device in the middle of the transmission line and
must not terminate those lines. I'm not fam with this card, but most
of the cards have an either/or term control, effectively rendering a
lashup such as is being described here, pretty much unworkable. My
best card was that advansys, and it did not have the ability to
terminate just the high order lines, which is what would be required
here.
I'd recommend strongly that this person get another scsi card, and put
the tape drive on it by itself, so that he has all the internal
devices on one card, and the external device on the other. Life will
be simplified considerably.
It's the same on mine (I have one with internal narrow and wide, and
external wide connectors).
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
--
Cheers, Gene
There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order.
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
99.32% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly
Yahoo.com attorneys please note, additions to this message
by Gene Heskett are:
Copyright 2005 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.
Re: Problem with amrecover
On Fri, Feb 04, 2005 at 11:21:07AM -, soed2003 wrote: --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Jon LaBadie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, Jan 22, 2005 at 02:45:40PM +0100, Sören Edzen wrote: Hi! I have problem using amrecover. I get the following output: amidxtaped: time 0.002: Ready to execv amrestore with: path = /usr/local/sbin/amrestore argv[0] = amrestore argv[1] = -p argv[2] = -h argv[3] = /dev/nst0 argv[4] = ^zampo.edzen.net$ argv[5] = ^/usr/local/cvsroot$ argv[6] = 20050115 As the exact amrestore command is shown, can you reproduce the error by running it manually? If so, it may be time to try and pull off manually some of the tape files and see if they are recorded correctly. This will involve using mt and dd commands. Then tar or dump on the result. -- Jon H. LaBadie [EMAIL PROTECTED] JG Computing 4455 Province Line Road(609) 252-0159 Princeton, NJ 08540-4322 (609) 683-7220 (fax) Hi I tried the exact amrestore command and got this: amrestore -p -h /dev/nst0 ^zampo.edzen.net$ ^/usr/local/cvsroot$ 20050204 amrestore: 0: skipping start of tape: date 20050202 label zampo102 amrestore: 1: skipping zampo.edzen.net._home_soredz_.mutt.20050202.0 amrestore: error reading file header: Input/output error How to restore with dd? mt is used to rewind the tape, right? Any ideas? I'm getting desperate. First I had trouble getting amanda to perform the backups. Then when I finally made it I cant restore anything. And of course, backups are worthless unless you can get your data back. mt is used for more than rewinding. Amanda backs up entities in its disklist file, aka DLE's, such as /home/soredz/.mutt on zampo.edzen.net. (Based on the above, I presume this is an entry in your disklist file, that it is a directory, and you are using gnutar to do the backup of this DLE, is that correct?) Each of these DLE's is backed up to an archive file and put on tape as a single tape file with 32KB of amanda info added at the front of the archive. If your disklist file has 10 DLE's, each is on the tape in a separate tape file. Plus there are two special amanda files, one each at the start and end of the tape. Using unix commands like dd, mt, tar, restore, ... you should be able to retrieve your data even with out amanda commands. That is assuming the data on the tape is good, the archive properly made, taped, and retrievable. Basically you position the tape at the beginning of the tape file you want. mt -f tape rewind mt -f tape fsf file number If you want to look at which DLE this tape file contains, look at the first 32KB with dd. dd if=tape bs=32k count=1 If you want the archive file on your hard disk, repeat the mt commands to get to the start of the tape file again and use dd. dd if=tape of=your choice of names bs=32k skip=1 Theoretically there was no need to repeat the mt commands, you could have done the 2 dd commands one after the other (without the skip=1) dd if=tape of=header bs=32k count=1 dd if=tape of=data bs=32k Now you have your archive file on hard disk. It may be compresses with gzip and need uncompression (depends on your config settings). You should be able to recover what is there with gnutar or your restore command as appropriate for how the archive was made. -- Jon H. LaBadie [EMAIL PROTECTED] JG Computing 4455 Province Line Road(609) 252-0159 Princeton, NJ 08540-4322 (609) 683-7220 (fax)
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
Interesting test. I powered down and disconnected the narrow 50-pin cable from card and unplugged
the power cable from the CD-ROM on the other end. In this configuration, there is
one wide 80-pin cable with 3 hard drives + 1 VXA-1 tape drive on the internal connection
to the card. The new packet-loader is on the external connector. Now turn on and reboot.
The Alphabios recognizes the devices correctly, milo boots up, then switches to
the linux kernel to boot up and the system just stops. I repeated this several times
and checked all connections and also tried several available kernel choices. Same thing.
Then I powered down, and reconnected the same narrow 50-pin cable back to the
same configuration and now the system boots and behaves just as before.
I am wondering now if there is some type of jumper on this pci card that enables/disables
the connectors such that if the internal 50-pin is enabled, it has to find a device to
boot; and perhaps a similar issue with the external connector ?
I mhave been searching the net for a manual on this scsi card and cannot seem to find
one since apparently symbios no longer keeps them for the ncr53c875 card ?
What scsi card to buy for this Alpha machine ?
On Fri, 2005-02-04 at 11:04 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote:
On Friday 04 February 2005 10:12, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:
On Fri, 4 Feb 2005, James D. Freels wrote:
The tape drive is within the VXA-2 Packet-Loader 1U rack mount.
It is connected via an external
scsi cable that came with the drive. the unit also came with it's
own terminator which is also plugged into the
packet loader. The packet-loader is the only device connected to
the scsi card externaly.
Inside, the scsi card has both a scsi-1 and scsi-2 connector. The
You mean, a narrow and a wide connector?
scsi-1 connector has a single device
connected (the CD-Rom). The scsi-2 connector has the rest of the
devices connected on a single cable
(3 hard drives, 1 VXA-1 Exabyte tape drive). It is a fairly long
cable, with about 8 inches of cable separating each
device. The last device on the cable is the VXA-1 tape drive
followed by a termination on the cable itself.
So the cabling is your problem: you should use maximum 2 of the 3
connectors on a SCSI card, since it's supposed to be a single long
chain without branches.
Said another way, that card may well have the narrow connector in
parallel with the wider one, and if thats the case, serious term
problems are in store. FWIW Geert, all 7 connectors on a given cable
can be used, provided the terms are removed from every device but the
last one, and the last device is truely on the end of the cable. And
the term power supplied is up to specs. The 4.3 to 4.4 volts you get
by way of the average cards isolation diode isn't spec by the .6
to .7 volts missing due to that isolation diode.
Now, where both the internal connectors on the card and the external
connector are in use as this person indicates, then the card, which
may have automatic terminations, must terminate ONLY those lines of
the wide bus that do not go on out via the rear panel connector to
any narrow devices at that end of the cable. The card, as far as the
original 8 bit data bus portion of the 50 pin cable, effectively
becomes a wired or device in the middle of the transmission line and
must not terminate those lines. I'm not fam with this card, but most
of the cards have an either/or term control, effectively rendering a
lashup such as is being described here, pretty much unworkable. My
best card was that advansys, and it did not have the ability to
terminate just the high order lines, which is what would be required
here.
I'd recommend strongly that this person get another scsi card, and put
the tape drive on it by itself, so that he has all the internal
devices on one card, and the external device on the other. Life will
be simplified considerably.
It's the same on mine (I have one with internal narrow and wide, and
external wide connectors).
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
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
On Friday 04 February 2005 13:31, James D. Freels wrote: Interesting test. I powered down and disconnected the narrow 50-pin cable from card and unplugged the power cable from the CD-ROM on the other end. In this configuration, there is one wide 80-pin cable with 3 hard drives + 1 VXA-1 tape drive on the internal connection to the card. The new packet-loader is on the external connector. Now turn on and reboot. The Alphabios recognizes the devices correctly, milo boots up, then switches to the linux kernel to boot up and the system just stops. I repeated this several times and checked all connections and also tried several available kernel choices. Same thing. Then I powered down, and reconnected the same narrow 50-pin cable back to the same configuration and now the system boots and behaves just as before. This has the general flavor of the scsi driver hanging while doing the bus scan because now the terms are really wacko. A more valid test may be to stick a terminator on the external, connector after disconnecting the new drive from it, or visiting the cards own bios extensions, ahh, ... its an alpha, so that may not work either. In any event all bets are off because the cd had no power, which *could* leave the bus quite heavily loaded and probably unable to arrive at enough pullup power to make a logic 1 on any data line. The cd should be disconnected from the scsi cable entirely for that test. Puyrchance is it the last device, on the last connector? In which case it should have the terms turned on and power applied, or some other means of terminating the cable's end applied to the cable when its unplugged from the data cable. I am wondering now if there is some type of jumper on this pci card that enables/disables the connectors such that if the internal 50-pin is enabled, it has to find a device to boot; and perhaps a similar issue with the external connector ? I mhave been searching the net for a manual on this scsi card and cannot seem to find one since apparently symbios no longer keeps them for the ncr53c875 card ? What scsi card to buy for this Alpha machine ? On Fri, 2005-02-04 at 11:04 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote: On Friday 04 February 2005 10:12, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote: On Fri, 4 Feb 2005, James D. Freels wrote: The tape drive is within the VXA-2 Packet-Loader 1U rack mount. It is connected via an external scsi cable that came with the drive. the unit also came with it's own terminator which is also plugged into the packet loader. The packet-loader is the only device connected to the scsi card externaly. Inside, the scsi card has both a scsi-1 and scsi-2 connector. The You mean, a narrow and a wide connector? scsi-1 connector has a single device Questionable choice of terminology, both scsi-1, and scsi-2 are normally equipt with 50 pin connectors internally, and db-25's or hi-dens 50 pinners for the external connector. The db-25 is so short on decent grounds that its been the ruination of many an otherwise good setup. When you get to wide bus stuff, thats scsi-3, and possibly even LVD, which isn't compatible with single ended stuff. connected (the CD-Rom). The scsi-2 connector has the rest of the devices connected on a single cable (3 hard drives, 1 VXA-1 Exabyte tape drive). It is a fairly long cable, with about 8 inches of cable separating each device. The last device on the cable is the VXA-1 tape drive followed by a termination on the cable itself. Ok, a term is on that end of the cable. Are all other devices between that term and the card completely unterminated? AND is there a wide to narrow adaptor anyplace in this internal chain? When testing to see if the cdrom has anything to do with it, the cdroms cable must be disconnected from the card, which removes the poorly terminated cdrom (because its powered down too) from the circuit the only way it should be. So the cabling is your problem: you should use maximum 2 of the 3 connectors on a SCSI card, since it's supposed to be a single long chain without branches. Said another way, that card may well have the narrow connector in parallel with the wider one, most do exactly that FWIW, and some might even term the high order bits on the card, knowing it will never go offcard in the external direction. Unforch, you probably can't prove how its setup without taking that card to a wintel box gaining access to its own bios extension preceeding the machines normal boot. and if thats the case, serious term problems are in store. FWIW Geert, all 7 connectors on a given cable can be used, provided the terms are removed from every device but the last one, and the last device is truely on the end of the cable. And the term power supplied is up to specs. The 4.3 to 4.4 volts you get by way of the average cards isolation diode isn't spec by the .6 to .7 volts missing due to that isolation diode. Now, where both the internal
Getting Amanda to production
hello, I have a few question in mind so I'll be able to better configure it. 1) So far I tested Amanda and backed up data on a hard drive and am quit happy with the results. Recently we got a new tape drive and I need to start backing up our data into taps. I am going to use the same Amanda server and clients. Should and if so how do I initialize Amanda so it won't care about previous backups? Additionally I'll probably have to do some more testing in order to see how much time/bandwidth Amanda uses when it backup to our tape drive. But after doing those tests - can I delete those files from the tape? 2) I understand that Amanda has its algorithm that decides when do to a full backup, or an incremental one. But I am a little confused with labeling tapes. (amlabel) When I used the hard-disk I define each hard-drive 'partition' as 4GB and then amlabel each disk e.g. #/usr/sbin/amlabel DailySet1 HISS01 slot 1 #/usr/sbin/amlabel DailySet1 HISS02 slot 2 ... However, I have tapes that each can store 400 compress data, and we have to store about 30GB - am I domed to use each tape for one backup - or can I 'partition' those tapes? Do I have to put each tape in the tape drive and run amlabel? 3) We have a local and remote sites that we have to backup any thoughts, comments on what should I keep in mine before doing so. Additionally any recommendation for what to use to secure our data when backing up remotely? I read that I can use TCP wrappers but how do I implement it with Amanda? 4) Finally, we have one tape drive and about 20 servers that we need to backup from. Some of those servers run on Solaris, some on Windows. Can I back all servers on the same tape, or do I need to set separate tapes for Win machines? Many thanks, gil
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
On Fri, 2005-02-04 at 14:36 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote:
The cable IS completely disconnected from the scsi card and the cd-rom IS the only
device on that cable. This is what is so strange. I did this test thinking it might
fix my problem since I am down from 2-internal, 1-external on the same card to
1-internal, 1-external. Both of which are terminated. The CD powered off should
have little to do with the problem since it is not connected to anything.
The cd should be disconnected from the scsi cable entirely for that
test. Puyrchance is it the last device, on the last connector? In
which case it should have the terms turned on and power applied, or
some other means of terminating the cable's end applied to the cable
when its unplugged from the data cable.
I am thinking about ordering an Lsi Logic LSIU80ALVD card ($70) and dedicate to this new device.
But I am not sure if the sym53c87xx-2 linux driver will work for it on the alpha. It should since
that driver works for the present card. For $70, it is worth a test, no ?
The Exabyte tech did specify an LVD card, but I think he is going for performance. I am just trying to
get the thing to work at this point.
I'd recommend strongly that this person get another scsi card, and
put the tape drive on it by itself, so that he has all the
internal devices on one card, and the external device on the
other. Life will be simplified considerably.
It's the same on mine (I have one with internal narrow and wide,
and external wide connectors).
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
Re: Getting Amanda to production
On Fri, Feb 04, 2005 at 02:43:55PM -0500, Gil Naveh wrote: hello, I have a few question in mind so I'll be able to better configure it. 1) So far I tested Amanda and backed up data on a hard drive and am quit happy with the results. Recently we got a new tape drive and I need to start backing up our data into taps. I am going to use the same Amanda server and clients. Should and if so how do I initialize Amanda so it won't care about previous backups? Additionally I'll probably have to do some more testing in order to see how much time/bandwidth Amanda uses when it backup to our tape drive. But after doing those tests - can I delete those files from the tape? I'd start a different config for the tape. Currently you probably do a cronjob with amdump vtapeconfig, simply comment that out entry and add an amdump realtapeconfig. That way, if you ever need to do vtape backups again, you can just uncomment it. 2) I understand that Amanda has its algorithm that decides when do to a full backup, or an incremental one. But I am a little confused with labeling tapes. (amlabel) When I used the hard-disk I define each hard-drive 'partition' as 4GB and then amlabel each disk e.g. #/usr/sbin/amlabel DailySet1 HISS01 slot 1 #/usr/sbin/amlabel DailySet1 HISS02 slot 2 ... However, I have tapes that each can store 400 compress data, and we have to store about 30GB - am I domed to use each tape for one backup yes - or can I 'partition' those tapes? no What some who have a large holding disk(s) space is to let several dump runs collect on the holding disk(s) by not putting a tape in the drive. Amrecover, I'm pretty sure, works with the taped or holding disk dumps. Then insert a tape and amflush them to tape. Do I have to put each tape in the tape drive and run amlabel? yes 3) We have a local and remote sites that we have to backup any thoughts, comments on what should I keep in mine before doing so. Additionally any recommendation for what to use to secure our data when backing up remotely? I read that I can use TCP wrappers but how do I implement it with Amanda? Don't bring them all on line at the same time. Make all your disklist entries but put a # sign to comment them out. Uncomment a couple each dump. Run amcheck with several from each client uncommented BEFORE even thinking about a dump. Maybe use your vtape config to test drive a client before moving them to the big show. 4) Finally, we have one tape drive and about 20 servers that we need to backup from. Some of those servers run on Solaris, some on Windows. Can I back all servers on the same tape, or do I need to set separate tapes for Win machines? Both can share a config. Lots of ways to do the M$ machines, none fully satisfactory. Samba clients to one or several of your unix hosts, nfs shares if your M$ boxes are nfs servers (possibly from M$'s free Services For Unix product - SFU), some windows backup program that writes to a file and backup that single file/directory with amanda, install cygwin on each box and install amanda so it looks like a unix host. Many limitations to backing up M$ boxes, set your expectations low and you won't be unhappy. -- Jon H. LaBadie [EMAIL PROTECTED] JG Computing 4455 Province Line Road(609) 252-0159 Princeton, NJ 08540-4322 (609) 683-7220 (fax)
Re: Getting Amanda to production
On Friday 04 Feb 2005 19:43, you wrote: hello, I have a few question in mind so I'll be able to better configure it. 1) So far I tested Amanda and backed up data on a hard drive and am quit happy with the results. Recently we got a new tape drive and I need to start backing up our data into taps. I am going to use the same Amanda server and clients. Should and if so how do I initialize Amanda so it won't care about previous backups? Just modify your disklist entries etc. If you don't care, Amanda won't care. As long as you use amlabel the new tapes. Additionally I'll probably have to do some more testing in order to see how much time/bandwidth Amanda uses when it backup to our tape drive. But after doing those tests - can I delete those files from the tape? Just over write them or remove them with amadmin 2) I understand that Amanda has its algorithm that decides when do to a full backup, or an incremental one. But I am a little confused with labeling tapes. (amlabel) When I used the hard-disk I define each hard-drive 'partition' as 4GB and then amlabel each disk e.g. #/usr/sbin/amlabel DailySet1 HISS01 slot 1 #/usr/sbin/amlabel DailySet1 HISS02 slot 2 ... However, I have tapes that each can store 400 compress data, and we have to store about 30GB - am I domed to use each tape for one backup - or can I 'partition' those tapes? Yes, one tape for one backup and you can't partition the tapes, but one backup can be many clients. Do I have to put each tape in the tape drive and run amlabel? Of course, how would Amanda know what tapes to use? 3) We have a local and remote sites that we have to backup any thoughts, comments on what should I keep in mine before doing so. Additionally any recommendation for what to use to secure our data when backing up remotely? I would use rsync to get the remote files if they are across the internet and then backup the machine they go to. I read that I can use TCP wrappers but how do I implement it with Amanda? This is in the docs. 4) Finally, we have one tape drive and about 20 servers that we need to backup from. Some of those servers run on Solaris, some on Windows. Can I back all servers on the same tape, or do I need to set separate tapes for Win machines? All one tape, just get teh right clients installed. Many thanks, gil -- Kind Regards, Gavin Henry. Managing Director. T +44 (0) 1467 624141 M +44 (0) 7930 323266 F +44 (0) 1224 742001 E [EMAIL PROTECTED] Open Source. Open Solutions(tm). http://www.suretecsystems.com/
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
--On Friday, February 04, 2005 09:41 -0500 James D. Freels [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: When you say cabling issues, does this include a separate scsi card specific for the tape drive ? I think my cable connections are good. This encompasses a whle list of issues. The two or three most common, are cable length, termination, and cable quality. Because you have a 10MB/sec device on there you're limited to 3 meters (~9ft) (FAST SCSI). If you remove that CD-ROM drive you should have a fully LVD chain from the sounds of it which means you have up to 12 meters (~40ft). You also need to have LVD compatible active terminators in either case. Cheap passive terminators will likely not work at extreme cable lengths. And this length is *ALL* cabling, so it includes cabling internal to the VXA autoloader (I think about 1 meter, tops). I would try cabling the Exa to a dedicated SCSI port before trying to do any firmware updates. See if that clears up your problems, it really does sound like your SCSI bus is too long. The scsi card I have is a LSI Logic / Symbios Logic (formerly NCR) 53c875 (rev 04) All devices are indicating on boot up (dmesg) at 40 MB/s except the CD-Rom which is indicating 10 MB/s. I have 3 hard drives, 2 tape drives (including the new one having trouble), and 1 CD-Rom in this scsi chain. I have tried all three scsi drivers available for this card in the linux kernel 1) ncr53c8xx, 2) sym53c8xx, and 3) sym53c8xx-2. The ncr53c8xx driver seems to give the least problems, so I have concentrated on this one. As I said, the library (autoloader) seems to work correctly, but it is just the tape writing that is giving me problems at present. It is able to label the tapes, but not write a larger data set to the tape.
RE: Getting Amanda to production
Thanks Gavin and Jon, Wow that was great help. Regarding my first question, what should I do with the 'old' labels (the hard disk) can I delete them? if not how Amanda knows to write on the new tape drive and not on the hard disk. Sincerely, gil -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jon LaBadie Sent: Friday, February 04, 2005 3:46 PM To: Amanda-Users Subject: Re: Getting Amanda to production On Fri, Feb 04, 2005 at 02:43:55PM -0500, Gil Naveh wrote: hello, I have a few question in mind so I'll be able to better configure it. 1) So far I tested Amanda and backed up data on a hard drive and am quit happy with the results. Recently we got a new tape drive and I need to start backing up our data into taps. I am going to use the same Amanda server and clients. Should and if so how do I initialize Amanda so it won't care about previous backups? Additionally I'll probably have to do some more testing in order to see how much time/bandwidth Amanda uses when it backup to our tape drive. But after doing those tests - can I delete those files from the tape? I'd start a different config for the tape. Currently you probably do a cronjob with amdump vtapeconfig, simply comment that out entry and add an amdump realtapeconfig. That way, if you ever need to do vtape backups again, you can just uncomment it. 2) I understand that Amanda has its algorithm that decides when do to a full backup, or an incremental one. But I am a little confused with labeling tapes. (amlabel) When I used the hard-disk I define each hard-drive 'partition' as 4GB and then amlabel each disk e.g. #/usr/sbin/amlabel DailySet1 HISS01 slot 1 #/usr/sbin/amlabel DailySet1 HISS02 slot 2 ... However, I have tapes that each can store 400 compress data, and we have to store about 30GB - am I domed to use each tape for one backup yes - or can I 'partition' those tapes? no What some who have a large holding disk(s) space is to let several dump runs collect on the holding disk(s) by not putting a tape in the drive. Amrecover, I'm pretty sure, works with the taped or holding disk dumps. Then insert a tape and amflush them to tape. Do I have to put each tape in the tape drive and run amlabel? yes 3) We have a local and remote sites that we have to backup any thoughts, comments on what should I keep in mine before doing so. Additionally any recommendation for what to use to secure our data when backing up remotely? I read that I can use TCP wrappers but how do I implement it with Amanda? Don't bring them all on line at the same time. Make all your disklist entries but put a # sign to comment them out. Uncomment a couple each dump. Run amcheck with several from each client uncommented BEFORE even thinking about a dump. Maybe use your vtape config to test drive a client before moving them to the big show. 4) Finally, we have one tape drive and about 20 servers that we need to backup from. Some of those servers run on Solaris, some on Windows. Can I back all servers on the same tape, or do I need to set separate tapes for Win machines? Both can share a config. Lots of ways to do the M$ machines, none fully satisfactory. Samba clients to one or several of your unix hosts, nfs shares if your M$ boxes are nfs servers (possibly from M$'s free Services For Unix product - SFU), some windows backup program that writes to a file and backup that single file/directory with amanda, install cygwin on each box and install amanda so it looks like a unix host. Many limitations to backing up M$ boxes, set your expectations low and you won't be unhappy. -- Jon H. LaBadie [EMAIL PROTECTED] JG Computing 4455 Province Line Road(609) 252-0159 Princeton, NJ 08540-4322 (609) 683-7220 (fax)
Re: Getting Amanda to production
On Fri, Feb 04, 2005 at 05:02:59PM -0500, Gil Naveh wrote: Thanks Gavin and Jon, Wow that was great help. Regarding my first question, what should I do with the 'old' labels (the hard disk) can I delete them? Are they important to you? if not how Amanda knows to write on the new tape drive and not on the hard disk. How did it know to write to the vtapes? You told it where to write. How will it know where to write to the real tapes? You will tell it. -- Jon H. LaBadie [EMAIL PROTECTED] JG Computing 4455 Province Line Road(609) 252-0159 Princeton, NJ 08540-4322 (609) 683-7220 (fax)
RE: Getting Amanda to production
ok you can laugh at me :) but I don't understand something with amlabel: how does it knows which tape drive I am referring to? since the command looks like: #amlabel DailySet1 labelname thx, gil -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jon LaBadie Sent: Friday, February 04, 2005 5:13 PM To: amanda-users@amanda.org Subject: Re: Getting Amanda to production On Fri, Feb 04, 2005 at 05:02:59PM -0500, Gil Naveh wrote: Thanks Gavin and Jon, Wow that was great help. Regarding my first question, what should I do with the 'old' labels (the hard disk) can I delete them? Are they important to you? if not how Amanda knows to write on the new tape drive and not on the hard disk. How did it know to write to the vtapes? You told it where to write. How will it know where to write to the real tapes? You will tell it. -- Jon H. LaBadie [EMAIL PROTECTED] JG Computing 4455 Province Line Road(609) 252-0159 Princeton, NJ 08540-4322 (609) 683-7220 (fax)
RE: Getting Amanda to production
On Fri, 4 Feb 2005 at 5:40pm, Gil Naveh wrote ok you can laugh at me :) but I don't understand something with amlabel: how does it knows which tape drive I am referring to? since the command looks like: #amlabel DailySet1 labelname It uses the drive specified in DailySet1's amanda.conf. -- Joshua Baker-LePain Department of Biomedical Engineering Duke University
Re: Getting Amanda to production
On Friday 04 February 2005 14:43, Gil Naveh wrote: hello, I have a few question in mind so I'll be able to better configure it. 1) So far I tested Amanda and backed up data on a hard drive and am quit happy with the results. Recently we got a new tape drive and I need to start backing up our data into taps. I am going to use the same Amanda server and clients. Should and if so how do I initialize Amanda so it won't care about previous backups? Additionally I'll probably have to do some more testing in order to see how much time/bandwidth Amanda uses when it backup to our tape drive. But after doing those tests - can I delete those files from the tape? 2) I understand that Amanda has its algorithm that decides when do to a full backup, or an incremental one. But I am a little confused with labeling tapes. (amlabel) When I used the hard-disk I define each hard-drive 'partition' as 4GB and then amlabel each disk e.g. #/usr/sbin/amlabel DailySet1 HISS01 slot 1 #/usr/sbin/amlabel DailySet1 HISS02 slot 2 ... However, I have tapes that each can store 400 compress data, You meant 400MB, or 400GB? and we have to store about 30GB - am I domed to use each tape for one backup - or can I 'partition' those tapes? Amanda does not to my knowledge, support partitioned tapes. I think it would be going against the basic premise amanda has of having the data safest at all times. Therefore amanda uses a different tape each run, and only re-uses that tape when its time to re-use it. It will not let you 'accidently' overwrite last nights backup with tonights unless _you_ force it to. The usual practice is to setup the schedule which amanda uses only as a guide, for a dumpcycle of say 7 days. You'll want at least 14 tapes in order to have a complete backup image available at all times, and possibly even backup up a few days if something wrong isn't promptly discovered. So you have 14 tapes, the tapecycle then is 14 days. Then you tell amanda how many runs in that dumpcycle days, like maybe you only do tuesday morning to saturday morning, 5 times a week, so the runspercycle then would be set to 5. Amanda then looks at what she has to do in that time frame, and will adjust the schedule of who gets a level 0 and who gets incrementals in order to satisfy the schedule you have given amanda as a target schedule AND to try and use about the same amount of the media each night. This 'balance' adjustment is an ongoing process, and you'll get emails after every run describing what was done during the run just completed. With anything sane for the target numbers, I've never seen amanda put off a level 0 that was needed by more than 1 day. Do I have to put each tape in the tape drive and run amlabel? Yes, thats the required method. 3) We have a local and remote sites that we have to backup any thoughts, comments on what should I keep in mine before doing so. Yes. It would be advisable to stay away from anything on a samba share. It doesn't support ctime, so the data always looks new and gets a level 0 every night even if the level has advanced to 4. Install an amanda client setup on each of the machines and use that instead. Or use rsync which I mention below. Additionally any recommendation for what to use to secure our data when backing up remotely? I read that I can use TCP wrappers but how do I implement it with Amanda? Tcpwrappers is a security control tool, and wouldn't hurt anything once setup to pass the amanda traffic. I use it on my firewall box, watching the internet side of things, along with portsentry and iptables. Call me paranoid... But as far as security of the data is concerned, one would want to wrap the amanda functions in an ssh or sftp in order to scramble it enough to be secure while in transit if thats a concern. I have not done that, so I'll defer to others here who may have and let them give the 'howto' advice. I'd point out that rsync, once the initial images in the holding area have been made, does a 64k block checksum on the src and target files, and only exchanges the real data if the checksums are different. This checksum traffic would help the security issue by drowning out the real data with the checksum traffic, once its in place and running. Bear in mind of course that this, along with gzip compression does require some horsepower to be expended in the client machines, but, a gzipped file also takes up less network bandwidth so a multimachine environment won't be bringing the network to it knees quite so fast. And the potential to speed up the backups by offloading the jobs to the clients so that many of them can be doing their thing all at the same time can save you several hours in a larger, 20 machine system. The secret is to give each machine/drive, a different, unique spindle number in the disklist entry as amanda will not run more than one operation on the same spindle at the same time.
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
On Friday 04 February 2005 14:58, James D. Freels wrote: On Fri, 2005-02-04 at 14:36 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote: The cable IS completely disconnected from the scsi card and the cd-rom IS the only device on that cable. This is what is so strange. I did this test thinking it might fix my problem since I am down from 2-internal, 1-external on the same card to 1-internal, 1-external. Both of which are terminated. The CD powered off should have little to do with the problem since it is not connected to anything. The cd should be disconnected from the scsi cable entirely for that test. Puyrchance is it the last device, on the last connector? In which case it should have the terms turned on and power applied, or some other means of terminating the cable's end applied to the cable when its unplugged from the data cable. I am thinking about ordering an Lsi Logic LSIU80ALVD card ($70) and dedicate to this new device. But I am not sure if the sym53c87xx-2 linux driver will work for it on the alpha. It should since that driver works for the present card. For $70, it is worth a test, no ? No? Wrong answer... Yes, certainly. And since there is no difference in the software protocol that I'm aware of, the driver should work, this difference you relate to us below is 100% hardware only I believe. The Exabyte tech did specify an LVD card, but I think he is going for performance. I am just trying to get the thing to work at this point. Aha, LVD! LVD is not compatible with the rest of the system unless the rest of the system is also LVD. It is two, completely seperate signalling methods that just happen to use the same cabling. LVD means Low Voltage Differential. It is a 2 wire per data line system that trades what would be the regular interfaces normal wired or open collector TTL range voltages working against ground, with a grounded wire in between each active conductor in the ribbon cable for shielding and a shared, very low impedance ground between the devices since about 24 of the 50 wires in the narrow cable are used for ground. The LVD trades the ground wire out for its use as a comparator signal, where the signals voltages are compared to the other conductor, one being driven a few millivolts low, and the other a few millivolts high, or vice versa to determine if its a zero or a one. These interfaces can be very fast, up to 320MB/second with good cabling. I hope the exabyte has not been damaged by being plugged into a normal high voltage single ended circuit. We have heard anecdotal stories of damage to the LVD interface a time or 2 by such a cross connection. So basicly, yes, if the exabyte is an LVD device, then you must have an LVD capable scsi card to interface with it. Unless the manul describes a way to switch it, and since there are hardware diffs, it would be pretty complex to do that. Its probably easier to just change the drives interface card out for the other type of hardware. -- Cheers, Gene There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order. -Ed Howdershelt (Author) 99.32% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly Yahoo.com attorneys please note, additions to this message by Gene Heskett are: Copyright 2005 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.
backup to Iomega REV
My original post Can Amanda use an Iomega REV drive as a tape? was answered affirmatively (thanks to all who responded!), but I'm still unsure of how to proceed. I have 2 servers: Amanda: 36gb-raid-1 (mirrored) -- RedHat AS 3.0 opsys, Amanda 2.4.4p4 72gb-raid-1 (mirrored) -- CVS repository, some user apps data 33gb Iomega REV rdd other: 36gb-raid-1 (mirrored) -- RedHat AS 3.0 opsys 72gb-raid-1 (mirrored) -- most user apps data I'd like daily backups, so users could restore files/directories from a few days past. I'd like Amanda to use the Iomega REV cartridge as a single tape, maybe filling it up slowly every day sending me an e-mail when it's full so I can load a new cartridge, or maybe making full backups weekly. The full backup will eventually exceed 33 gb (although Iomega claims 90gb using their Windows compression). I'd also like to keep the previous month's (or thereabout) full backup cartridges off site. This is roughly what we now have on our old server, with NetBackup making 7 daily incremental bkps 5 full weekly bkps. How do I translate this to Amanda configurations? Do I need to use work disks at all? Why would the REV cartridge have to be split into multiple vtapes?
