On Mon, Feb 10, 2003 at 02:06:53PM +0100, Paul Bijnens wrote:
>
> Pro-Fit wrote:
> >Hey folks - thanks for all your help - another newbie
> >question...
> >
> >Is it possible to put the amlabel process in the CRON
> >as opposed to running it manually everyday? How would
> >one do this?
>
> I wouldn't do it... :-)
>
> The label on the tape serves some useful purposes. First it verifies
> that the tape in the device is indeed an Amanda tape, and not some
> other tape containing the data for your nobel prize project.
> With the tapelabel, Amanda can verify that she has the expected tape
> and not one that should not yet be overwritten (i.e. not yesterdays
> backup that you forgot to take out, because you had a day off for example).
>
> That's why you first label your tapes, when you awake, and not half
> sleeping, and after three times verifing that you put in the correct
> tape in the drive. And you also put a sticker on the tape with the
> Amanda's label on it, e.g. DailySet1-001. Stickers cannot be put on a
> tape by cron afaik.
>
> Once labelled, you normally never ever have to relabel a tape.
>
> Taking this in consideration, you don't need to amlabel a tape by a cron
> command at night, wiping out whatever tape was someone put by accident
> in the tape drive. There is nobody around to verify that the tape that
> you put in around 5 PM is still the same...
>
> If you do feel the need to relabel a tape each time it is used by
> Amanda, you are probably trying to force Amanda into something for which
> she is not designed, like labeling your tapes "monday", "tuesday", etc.
> Look in the archives of this list to find the arguments against this scheme.
>
> ps. If you really are smarter than Amanda, try this command in your
> crontab: "amlabel -f <config> <label>", about 5 minutes before the
> amdump entry.
>
> pps. if you really are smarter than Amanda, you would already know the
> above command too :-)
>
And if all that smart they probably would also know to amrmtape the old label
should a previously indexed tape be used.
--
Jon H. LaBadie jon AT jgcomp DOT com
JG Computing
4455 Province Line Road (609) 252-0159
Princeton, NJ 08540-4322 (609) 683-7220 (fax)
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