On Friday 18 July 2003 09:07, Jon LaBadie wrote:
> What would be the PITA.  Tuesday's tape would not be available for Tuesday?
> If that is the problem, this is the type of labeling that is so often
> cautioned against.

The labels are generic. The data center uses an in-house written piece of 
software that manages tapes though. I have to "break the rotation" and have 
someone reset the next tape number. Not a big deal, just a pain. The 
alternative is putting in tapes myself everyday, and coming in on the 
weekends.

> Anyway, real solutions ...
>
> Leave them in the holding disk?  Recoveries still work.  But of course
> you have a smaller holding disk available -- still have enough?  Then
> when their normal time comes around rm them and maybe their index files.
>
> Alternatively, if one day's worth of runtapes (maybe 1 in your case)
> will hold 3 days of backups, set autoflush to true in your amanda.conf.
> I forget when it came in, but it was not available in 2.4.2.  This will
> cause any backups on the holding disk to be taped along with the current
> day's amdump.  Ironically this exact thing is happening to me as I type.
> I forgot to change the magazine in my changer to the next one and collected
> two dumps on the holding disk.  I have runtapes set to 2 to handle just
> such situations.  But it is no PITA, the tapes, and magazines, are just
> used in rotation without regard to specific tapes for specific days.

I'm running 2.4.2 on Debian so no autoflush. I will just have to eat this one 
and hope they've got my tapes in proper rotation now. I'll set autoflush some 
sunny day, perhaps when the next Debian release is out.

Thanks for your input.

-- 
Brendon Colby
Systems Administrator
Midcontinent Communications