On Thu, May 29, 2003 at 10:02:09PM +0800, Mathias Körber wrote:
> In detail:
> - users will not read the daily email telling them which
> tape is expected and want to have a scheme as simple as
> possible
> - users will not understand that 18 tapes make a 3 week cycle
> (assuming weekday backups only). Ie, the 'a few extra tapes'
> may be confusing
Are you sure you're not making this a wee bit more complicated than it is?
I have 15 tapes, labeled "Daily1" through "Daily15", both in amanda and
on the paper labels stuck to the tapes. Telling someone else how to
handle them when I'm gone takes about 5 seconds and does not require that
they be able to read amanda's mail nor that they understand tapecycles
or dumpcycles:
"Each day, replace the tape in the drive with the tape numbered 1 higher.
After tape 15, go back to tape 1."
> - Amanda's way to say 'a new tape' will confuse the use if they
> actually
> read the emails. They will want to be told exactly which tape
> to insert (or better deduct using dead simple reasoning)
Amanda should never ask for new tapes except on the first tapecycle or
replacing bad tapes and, assuming everything is labeled appropriately,
the explanation I mentioned above still works just fine in both of
these cases.
> - should a tape need to be skipped (for whatever reason) and
> eg tape 15 follow tape 13, thsi will later confuse the users as
> the sequence will get jumbled.
Why would a tape ever need to be skipped other than in an attempt
to force amanda into a 'tape 1 on Monday, tape 2 on Tuesday' scheme?
I know that I've been using it for a year and a half and the only time
I've needed to skip tapes was when I messed up the order while expanding
the tapecycle. And that was my own fault; if I had known what I was
doing at the time, tape skipping would not have been necessary.
> My boss sugegsted a simple scheme of
> Week 1 Monday
> Week 1 Tuesday
> thru
> Week 3 Thursday
> Week 3 Friday
I thought you said you were using 18 tapes. Where do the other three
fit into this labeling scheme?
> I understand that Amanda's way of labelling and rotating tapes in a non
> fixed manner is superior,
Then you should also understand the pain that a 'tape 1 on Monday,
tape 2 on Tuesday' scheme will cause if you try force one on amanda.
> Is it in fact possible to replace eg tape 13 when it dies
> with another tape 13 and to re-use that exactly in the
> same sequence?
Yes. Just use amlabel to give the new tape the same name as the old one.
It will give you a warning that a tape by that name already exists,
but all you have to do is say that, yes, you want to do this anyhow.
(Just be sure to do this immediately before using the replacement tape
since amanda will recognize it as a new tape and want to use it next,
which will throw off your sequence if you label it earlier.)
> I suspect one will have to at least
> force a new level 0 of everything that isnot due so that
> one does not lose out?
Nope. Each time the tape is used, all old data on it gets wiped out
anyhow, so it doesn't matter whether it has last tapecycle's data on it
or is a virgin blank.
> How can I make Amanda ask for a tape by name even
> if I just started the first cycle( in which case it
> always requests a 'new tape' wven though all tapes are
> already in the tapelist after beinglabelled)?
Have the users ignore the mail and just cycle the tapes by number.
> Would it help to edit tapelist to put dummy dates against
> each one to make it thing the so far unused tapes
> have in the past been used and are up for re-use in
> the normal cycle, or will that confuse other parts of
> Amanda (eg the balancing, history etc)?
Yeah, that would probably work and shouldn't hurt anything else.
The history and balancing data is stored elsewhere and, worst case, things
might be a little more awkward (for amanda, not for the users) than usual
for the first few dumpcycles, but it'll straighten itself out after that.
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