On Sat, Feb 15, 2003 at 12:56:09AM -0500, Rick Parola wrote:
> I've been running amanda for about a month, I figured it's about time to
> verify those backups and see if it's working... I verified two fairly recent
> tapes and got the following errors.
A month and you decided to see if you could verify (never mind restore) -
you're an optimist or what ? amverify is NOT a test of your backup procedure
- it merely checks that amrestore is able to read the files off the tape,
passes them through the restore program to get a listing and gives an error
code. It's a pretty good DAILY (i.e. per run) check that everything appears
to be OK with amanda. However, it only checks that what has been written can
be read - it doesn't check that the correct data has been written.
To properly test your backups, you must periodically restore from your
backup media to an alternative location and check that what you have
restored is the same as the source data.
Anyway, enough with the lectures (but enough less you're an idiot, you
should be thanking me for it) and back to your current problem.
> I'm not sure what to make of 'em, does it look like my mistake somewere (i
> notice it refers to the non rewinding device) or should I assume those tapes
> are too old?
You definitely appear to have a problem with your tape drive and/or media.
You mention "too old". How old are they - tapes are definitely a limited
usage media, some more so than others ?
> Am check ran fine on 2 other tapes from yesterday and today's backups.
That tells you that your configuration is OK tape drive is at least working
to some extent i.e. amcheck can read the headers from the tapes.
> Here is the amverify email:
>
> Tapes: DailySet119 DailySet120
> Errors found:
> DailySet120 (localhost._home.20030208.0):
> amrestore: 0: skipping start of tape: date 20030208 label DailySet120
Reading and skipping the header - you've already established that it does
that from the amcheck.
> amrestore: 1: restoring localhost._home.20030208.0
> amrestore: read error: Input/output error
OH ! OH ! - amrestore got an error reading the tape - problem with drive or
media.
> gzip: stdin: unexpected end of file
gzip is getting upset because the supply of data has dried up, so it, of
course, stops feeding tar which then says:
> /bin/tar: Unexpected EOF in archive
> /bin/tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now
But now some light dawns:
> Loading current slot...
> Using device /dev/nst0
> Volume DailySet119, Date 20030207
> Checked tigger._etc.20030207.1
> Checked tigger._home_shares.20030207.4
> Checked localhost._home.20030207.1
> Checked localhost._var.20030207.2
> Checked localhost._etc.20030207.1
> End-of-Tape detected.
So it looks like tape DailySet119 is OK.
> Loading next slot...
> Using device /dev/nst0
> Volume DailySet120, Date 20030208
and now it loads DailySet120 again, why, I don't know.
> ** Error detected (localhost._home.20030208.0)
> amrestore: 0: skipping start of tape: date 20030208 label DailySet120
> amrestore: 1: restoring localhost._home.20030208.0
> amrestore: read error: Input/output error
>
> gzip: stdin: unexpected end of file
> /bin/tar: Unexpected EOF in archive
> /bin/tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now
and repeat as earlier.
>From what you've shown here, tape DailySet120 is dead and should be sent to
the bin forthwith. I would STRONGLY advise that you add an amverify run into
your daily backup procedure, which gives you at least a first level
indication that you can restore what you just backed up. You also need to
periodically restore some data from tape (either complete filesystems or
some random files) to do an end to end check.
Kindest regards,
Niall O Broin
|
