Networker

Re: [Networker] tape modes

2002-08-05 05:44:17
Subject: Re: [Networker] tape modes
From: Davina Treiber <treiber AT HOTPOP DOT COM>
To: NETWORKER AT LISTMAIL.TEMPLE DOT EDU
Date: Mon, 5 Aug 2002 05:46:36 -0400
On Fri, 2 Aug 2002 16:32:36 -0400, Matthew Bourne <mbourne2001 AT LYCOS.CO DOT 
UK>
wrote:

>I have seen this behaviour too.
>
>Our set-up has one single DLT7000 drive in addition to an 8-slot jukebox.
>
>If I change the mode of a volume to recyclable, NetWorker treats it in one
of two ways:
>1. If the volume is in a jukebox slot, it will be selected, recycled, and
used by NetWorker
>when required.
>2. If the volume is in the lone DLT7000 drive, once I have changed its
mode to
>recyclable, I then have to mount it manually - but this doesn't force
NetWorker to recycle
>the tape, so it mounts Read Only.
>
>I've yet to figure out how to _actually_ recycle a volume manually, rather
than simply
>marking it as recyclable, which is what I need to do in the case of the
lone DLT.

Standalone tape devices do not benefit from the automation of libraries.
Under normal operation, the tape drive will not mount or label tapes unless
you ask it to by issuing an nsrmm command. You should not need to mark it
as recyclable, if you are doing this you are most likely overriding your
retention policies and possibly throwing away valid backup data.

There is a way to make standalone tape drives more automatic, and that is
by selecting auto media management. This causes NetWorker to poll the drive
periodically and then mount, label, or recycle tapes as it sees fit. I am
not a fan of this feature for the following reasons:

(1) If a non-NetWorker tape is mounted in the drive for any reason it will
be labelled for NetWorker.

(2) Any new tapes will be labelled using templates, and ignoring barcodes.
My preference would be to label new tapes in a library (using barcode label
where applicable), then future recycling in a standalone tape drive will
respect the existing label.

(3) The tape drive is kept busy, even when no tape is loaded or no backups
are in progress.

(4) Placing a tape in a standalone drive is a manual activity, to me it
makes more sense to label or recycle the tape manually too. This can be
done from scripts if necessary. Scripts can check the label (nsrmm -p) then
act based on the status of the volume to recycle or otherwise.

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