Assigned means that some system has flagged the tape "in use".  It
should also deassign the tape after it is done with it (probably after
the images expire).  Then some other system can grab and assign the
tape.  

Notice I didn't say anything about pools above.  Putting a tape into a
pool does not assign it, those are two different things.

Fabbro, Andrew P writes:
> What is the authoritative way of checking to see if a tape is free?  By free
> I mean either (a) never used, or (b) all images on it are recycled.

Time assigned.

> 
> The "free_tapes" script in the goodies directory simply reports unassigned

free_tapes?  Never heard of that one.  available_media doesn't seem to
look at the number of mounts, but if it did I'm sure they'd compare to
the max mounts, not a fixed number.

> tapes that have been mounted less than some arbitrary maximum (e.g., the
> "assigned" field from vmquery is "---" and the number of mounts is less than
> 125).  However, isn't it possible that a tape could be assigned to a pool,
> live in the pool for a while, have all its images expire, and thus still be
> "assigned" while also being free (i.e., blank for all intents and purposes)?

It won't be assigned anymore.

> 
> Also, we're implementing a scratch pool and I'm curious what the mechanism
> is for moving a tape from its assigned pool back into scratch.  Let's say
> pool A claims tape 123 from scratch, uses it a while, and then eventually
> all of the images on the tape expire.  I would like at that point for the
> tape to drop back into the scratch pool...is that what happens?

Nope.  It stays in the pool it's in.  Vault will (optionally) move
tapes back into the scratch pool after they return (expired), but std
NBU just leaves them where they are.


-- 
Larry Kingery 
              All wiyht. Rho sritched mg kegtops awound?