Hello,

I hope I can get some help with this.

I am running AIX 4.1.4 with ADSM V 2.x (which I had to pull down from the ftp
site, lslpp reports 2.1).  I am trying to demonstrate whether the HSM
functionality will work for what we want in our environment.  We are not
particularly interested in the backup/archive functions at this point, other
than to backup the space managed filesystem (only one in this test
environment).

While I have been able to successfully migrate files disk to disk, when I
attempt to backup either a space managed or non-space managed file system using
ADSM, I continually get I/O errors and failure.

Now I admit that it is perfectly possible that I have missed something that
should have been obvious in the documentation, but try as I might, I can't find
what it might be.

Scenario --

        Configure tape device to AIX using SMIT. (variable block size, should
          it be fixed at some value?  I couldn't find anything in the docs
           about it one way or the other.)
        Configure ADSM tape device using SMIT.
        Do all the defining of devices, libraries (manual), etc. necessary
          to make ADSM aware of the drive.
        Label a bunch of tapes using ADSM
-->     Select Backup/Archive client.
        Select Backup
        Select Backup
        Select Backup by File Specfication
        Select all files in the filesystem by selecting all files (including
          subdirectories).
        Select backup.
->      Mount a tape in the drive (I do run dsmadmc -mountmode to watch
things).
things).
        See the message of
          "8mm VOLX mounted in drive TAPEDRIVE01 (/dev/mt0)
        See the "Waiting for media mount" window go away.
        Either
           a- see anywhere from a few hundred KB to a few MB written
           b- see nothing written
        See message -
          I/O error on drive TAPEDRIVE01 (/dev/mt0) (OP=WRITE, CC=205, KEY=FF,
          ASC=FF, ASCQ=FF).
        Either -
          a- window with "Detected System Error" message and backup stops or
          b- window with "Waiting for Media Mount " message and dismounted tape
             message and request for another tape and cycle back to ->
          c- decide that having failed on x tapes I'm through messing around
                and wait for the mount request to time out
        Delete all volumes I've tried to use and cycle back to --> after
          frustrating myself looking for any hint in the documentation

I have seen the same messages using
        1- an IBM provided (with the system) 8200 8mm tape drive (OK, it's an
           old system -- what do you want for a test environment?)
        2- a generic 8200 8mm tape drive
        3- a generic 8505 8mm tape drive

I have had no difficulty reading and writing the same tapes on the same tape
drives using system software (i.e. tar or dd).

So, please, am I missing something I should have seen or is this something that
needs to be fixed?  Is there a later version of ADSM (which supports the HSM
client under AIX 4.1) which I need?  We have to have AIX 4.1 for the larger
than 2 GB filesystems (can you imagine managing 100 GB of space managed disk, 2
GB at a time?).

If anyone can help with this problem I would be glad to send you virtual
brownies or cookies or other simulated rewards.  It will also let me get on
with doing other things here at work, and thus feeling productive again.

Janet Curtis


Sr. Systems Programmer
Administrative Computing Services and Utah Supercomputing Institute
University of Utah

udpjcc AT usi.utah DOT edu