Amanda-Users

Re: Amanda can't overwrite old tapes

2008-10-16 09:55:19
Subject: Re: Amanda can't overwrite old tapes
From: Jon LaBadie <jon AT jgcomp DOT com>
To: amanda Mailingsliste <amanda-users AT amanda DOT org>
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2008 09:47:53 -0400
On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 07:04:55AM +0200, Thomas Wegner wrote:
> Hello!
> 
> I'm running weekly backups with two cycles a week. Here are my settings
> in amanda.conf:
> 
> ----------------------------
> dumpcycle 7  
> runspercycle 2 
> tapecycle 10 tapes 
> runtapes 5
> tpchanger "chg-disk"
> ----------------------------
> I'm still testing amanda. This is the first time amanda used all 10 vtapes. I 
> thought amanda will automaticly use old tapes when there aren't new vtapes 
> available.
> This is the email from amanda:
> 
> -----------------------------
> These dumps were to tape weekly1-9.
> *** A TAPE ERROR OCCURRED: [No more writable valid tape found].
> Some dumps may have been left in the holding disk.
> Run amflush to flush them to tape.
> The next 5 tapes Amanda expects to use are: 5 new tapes.

This message typically is caused by the tapelist file containing
fewer reusable tapes than "tapecycle", 10 in your case.


Beyond that, your configuration has potential "gotcha's".
When your tapecycle is exactly the number needed for one
dumpcycle, you are always overwriting tapes needed for
the one and only dumpcycle you have available.  If anything
goes wrong during that overwrite, you have neither the
current dump, nor the needed tapes for the single previous
dump you were saving.  The minimum recommendation is to
have tapecycle be sufficient for 'at least' two dumpcycles
and a strong preference for more.


-- 
Jon H. LaBadie                  jon AT jgcomp DOT com
 JG Computing
 12027 Creekbend Drive          (703) 787-0884
 Reston, VA  20194              (703) 787-0922 (fax)

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