Re: [Networker] Comment Field

> I would even take the idea a step further,
>
> I should be possible to display the comment field, or an additional alias
> field, in the administration gui instead of the name of the tape drives.
> That way we could get a much "quieter" view of the devices.

Something to help here would be nice too.

I don't think that I would use a comment field though.  I'd prefer to
see the "name" of a device being an arbitrary (but unique) user-chosen
value with the device name (and the storage node name) just being
attributes.  As in:

type: NSR device;
name: my drive 1;
device: /dev/rmt/1cbn;
media type: dlt7000;
media family: tape;
storage node: sn1.abc.com;
  .
  .
  .

Encoding this information into the resource name is a crock.

The same comments apply to the NSR jukebox resource.  NSR client too.


A hint for those who use systems where the device names are
particularly bad: the name of the device that you feed into NetWorker
can be a symlink.  On my main server I have these symlinks defined:

    /nsr/dev/dlt0 -> /dev/rmt/6cbn
    /nsr/dev/dlt1 -> /dev/rmt/7cbn
    /nsr/dev/dlt2 -> /dev/rmt/2cbn
    /nsr/dev/dlt3 -> /dev/rmt/3cbn
    /nsr/dev/dlt4 -> /dev/rmt/8cbn
    /nsr/dev/dlt5 -> /dev/rmt/9cbn

While, in my case, this doesn't shorten the name by much, it does allow
me to give a mnemonic name to the device rather than having to put up
with the OS chosen random-looking giberish.

Another advantage is that it simplifies the process of fixing things up
after a minor hardware change; I just recreate a few symlinks.  Without
it I would be in nwadmin clicking away for ages.

KISS - life is complicated enough as it is.

George.
--
George Scott           George.Scott AT its.monash DOT edu
Systems Programmer, IT Services, Monash University

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