Amanda-Users

Re: amtapetype doesn´t work

2005-11-10 01:28:23
Subject: Re: amtapetype doesn´t work
From: Jon LaBadie <jon AT jgcomp DOT com>
To: amanda-users AT amanda DOT org
Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 01:13:11 -0500
On Wed, Nov 09, 2005 at 11:55:45PM -0000, knappenschaenke wrote:
> --- In amanda-users AT yahoogroups DOT com, Jon LaBadie <jon@j...> wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, Nov 09, 2005 at 11:50:25PM +0100, yahoo@e... wrote:
> > > Hello,
> > > 
> > > I use Suse 9.3 prof. with Amanda 2.4.4p3 and a Quantum DLT4000 
> > > tape-drive with 35/70 GB DLT-tapes.
> > > 
> > > First step was erasing the tape and then labeled with amlabel.
> > > 
> > > Before defining some hardware-infos in the 
> > > /etc/DailySet1/amanda.conf, I tested it with amtapetype.
> > > 
> > > But I got always the following error :
> > > "Estimate phase 2....amtapetype: could not write any data in 
> this 
> > > pass: short write"
> > > 
> > ...
> > > 
> > > -------------------------------------------------------
> > > Here are the outputs from amtapetype
> > > --------------------------------------------------------
> > > 
> > > asterix:/etc # amtapetype -f /dev/nst0
> > > Writing 128 Mbyte   compresseable data:  29 sec
> > > Estimate phase 2...amtapetype: could not write any data in this 
> pass: 
> > > short write
> > >
> > 
> > Unlikely to be your problem, but with todays' larger tapedrives
> > it is always a good idea to let amtapetype know the approximate
> > size of the tape with the -e option, 35GB in your case.
> > 
> 
> Sorry, that´s not the problem.
> 
> "amtapetype -f /dev/nst0 -e 35g" produce exactly the same error !
> 

As I said, I did not think so.  It was general info.

Couple of things,  I don't use DLT.  You say you are using 35GB tapes.
But isn't the DLT4000 a 20GB drive?  Are the larger tapes compatible?

>From your original post you showed the results of mt status commands.
They all included lines like this:

        drive status = -2113928192

I don't know what it should be, but that doesn't look right to me.

Two of the status outputs show a block size of 0, probably meaning
"variable".  But the other two show a fixed block size of 1024 "bytes".
These two devices may not be usable by amanda as its minimal block
size is 32 KByte.

You tried to show that the tape device was installed and working by
using the command "tar -cf /dev/nst0 /tmp/myfiles".  That device had
a "variable" block size and tar uses 10KByte by default.  The tar
command mimiced the success amanda had.  When you ran amtapetype on
/dev/nst0 it first reported:

        "Writing 128 Mbyte   compresseable data:  29 sec"

So a write comparable to your tar command succeeded.  Then amanda
rewound the tape and started a second write.  That is when it failed.
Perhaps you could run a test that more closely matches amanda's code
by putting the following into a shell script and running it.

  mt -f /dev/nst0 rewind
  dd bs=32k if=/dev/random of=/dev/nst0 count=4000
  mt -f /dev/nst0 rewind
  dd bs=32k if=/dev/random of=/dev/nst0 count=4000

It looks to me like the installation, or the configuration,
of the drive is the problem.
-- 
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)

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>