Hello Charlie

Sounds like your magnetic tape labels don't match your barcode labels or the
tapes were previously used without magnetic labels.   The former happens when
someone opens the door to the tape library and decides to rearrange the tapes on
you (although the library will re-inventory, Netbackup won't consolidate it's
database with that of the robot until you command it to).   The latter happens
when you reuse tapes that were used for other purposes or have been changing
which tapes you use for your catalog backups.

I would say that you need to use "tpreq" to mount the tape, "mt -f erase" the
tape, and "tpunmount" to unmount the tape.   "tpreq" and "tpunmount" are Veritas
Volume Manager commands found in /usr/openv/volmgr/bin and "mt" is a regular
UNIX command    This will erase the tape completely and could take some time to
do.   The next time Netbackup tries to use the tape, it will think it's a new
tape and write a magnetic label to match the barcode label.   You could also
issue a "bplabel" command to label it right then and there rather than have it
relabelled on the next write.

I use a little script to erase, retension and relabel a list of tapes every now
and then.   It goes like this:

#! /bin/sh

# Erasing Tapes

LISTFILE=/var/jwang/scripts/TAPES

for TAPE in `cat ${LISTFILE}`
do
        date
        echo "Unfreezing tape ${TAPE}"
        /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/admincmd/bpmedia -unfreeze -ev "${TAPE}" -h
iah-bk-02
        echo "Transferring tape ${TAPE} to Hold pool"
        /usr/openv/volmgr/bin/vmchange -h amazon -p 10 -m "${TAPE}"
        echo "Mounting tape ${TAPE}"
        /usr/openv/volmgr/bin/tpreq -ev "${TAPE}" -a w -d 8mm -p Hold -f
"/tmp/${TAPE}"
        echo "Erasing tape ${TAPE}"
        /bin/mt -f "/tmp/${TAPE}" erase
        echo "Retensioning tape ${TAPE}"
        /bin/mt -f "/tmp/${TAPE}" retension
        echo "Unmounting tape ${TAPE}"
        /usr/openv/volmgr/bin/tpunmount -f "/tmp/${TAPE}"
        echo "Relabelling tape ${TAPE}"
        /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/admincmd/bplabel -ev "${TAPE}" -d 8mm -o -p
Hold
        echo "Transferring tape ${TAPE} to Scratch pool"
        /usr/openv/volmgr/bin/vmchange -h amazon -p 2 -m "${TAPE}"
        echo "Done with tape ${TAPE}"
        date
        echo ""
done


Regards,
John I Wang
Sr. Systems Engineer
Steverson Information Professionals

---
Enron Networks
Enron Building room 3427e
ph (713) 345-4888
cell (832) 493-1263
fax (713) 646-8462
pg pagejwang AT skytel DOT com or 1-877-390-4155





|--------+----------------------->
|        |          charles.somog|
|        |          yi AT bms DOT com   |
|        |                       |
|        |          07/10/01     |
|        |          10:20 AM     |
|        |                       |
|--------+----------------------->
  >--------------------------------------------------------------------|
  |                                                                    |
  |       To:     veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu                    |
  |       cc:     (bcc: John Wang/Contractor/Enron Communications)     |
  |       Subject:     [Veritas-bu] Multiple tapes cannot be mounted   |
  >--------------------------------------------------------------------|



Hello All:

We recently started to run into a problem where a backup will
kickoff, and the job will try to mount all the scratch tapes in a
robot; tries one, then goes to the next, etc, etc. (happening to
both STK9710 and L700/DLT 7000 Drives). The tape does not get
assigned but does get moved to the pool defined by the class. The
All Log Entries reports that the tape is either, misplaced, write
protected or unmountable. The only way to resolve issue is to
turn the robot off and on and reinventory. When the job is kicked
off again, it writes to one of the tapes that was just tagged as
"unmountable".

We see this in our NBU 3.2 and NBU 3.4 DataCenter environments.
(HP-UX 11.00)

Anybody seen this before?

Thanks.

Charlie Somogyi
BMS
Princeton, NJ
609-818-3589

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