On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 10:27:55PM +0200, Thomas Wegner wrote:
> Am Donnerstag, den 16.10.2008, 09:47 -0400 schrieb Jon LaBadie:
> 
> > > 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"
> > > ----------------------------
> 
> > This message typically is caused by the tapelist file containing
> > fewer reusable tapes than "tapecycle", 10 in your case.
> Perhaps I misunderstood the meaning of tapecycle. I've thought that when I am 
> running 2 dumps a week using the maximum of 5 tapes per run a tapecycle of 10 
> tapes is enough for one week. Up to now I needed a maximum number of three 
> tapes per dump.
> What will happen when 6 tapes were used in week 1 for backup and next
> week 4 new tapes remains for an new dumpcycle? Will amanda use 4 new
> tapes and 2 old tapes? If it is so, why do I get this error message from
> amanda. Sorry, but I'm still a little bit confused.
> 

Each time a tape is written, it will not be reused/overwritten until
at least (tapecycle -1) other tapes have been used.  Note, that is
"at least".  You can always have more tapes in circulation than your
tapecycle.  Tapecycle is the minimum number of tapes you must have.

Assuming you have ten tapes labeled 01-10, and use tape 01 today,
that tape, tape 01 can not be used again until tapes 02-10 are used.
When tape 01 can be used again, amanda is willing to use it or another
never used tape such as tape 11 or 12 if they are also in circulation.
But it will not use tape 02, because (tapecycle -1) other tapes have
not been used since tape 02 was last used.


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