On Mon, Jul 28, 2003 at 09:58:25AM -0700, Adam Ardis wrote:
> I never want to overwrite, but we're supposed to
> rotate them out daily.

I assume you mean you *do* want to overwrite, but only overwrite "old"
tapes, for some definition of "old".

In that case, Amanda did exactly the right thing on your behalf,
by preventing you from overwriting your *newest* tapes.

> It's possible these weren't
> moved out, but my real question here is that I don't
> want amanda to be dependent on the tapelist.

In the environment you're in (apparently not full-only, dumpcycle 1
week), you really cannot do that.

> Do I
> have to go by what the rotation is listed in
> tape-list,

If your total number of labeled tapes is > tapecycle, you can have
a choice of multiple "old" tapes, but you still need tapelist.

> or can I continue to put in any tape?  If I
> can't, then i'll try to rearrange the tapes and the
> tape list to be accurate, but since we have operators
> moving the tapes, I wanted them to just put an
> available tape in, rather than a specific tape.

Well, if you're doing incrementals, you have to have your tapes at
least *semi* under control, right?  You can't just feed random tapes
lest you clobber the tape(s) you need to restore a file you
removed two days ago.

> And
> by available I mean one that came back to us offsite
> that can be overwritten.

Ah, *that* we can probably work with.

> > Because you have set dumpcycle and tapecycle to tell
> > it not to.
> 
> Can you be more specific as to how to do this?

Sure, though it would be even better if *you* were more specific!  :-)
But here's a cooked up example along the lines you're talking
about.

Suppose your particulars are:

    Do fulls at least 1X/week.

    Run amdump 5X/week, 1 tape/run.

    All tapes are transported offsite the day after being written.

    Keep the last 4 weeks worth of tapes offsite at all times.

    Keep about 1 weeks worth of "writable" tapes onsite at
    all times.

dumpcycle 1 week
runspercycle 5
tapecycle 20

You would amlabel at least 25 tapes.  All except the most-recently-
used 20 would be "writable".

Each day when the newest tape is dropped off at offsite storage,
the oldest tape is returned.  Any of the onsite tapes can be
used (since #-of-tapes is > tapecycle).

> Ok I understand.  If we fail to remove the tape and
> have it overwrite daily, I will lose the day before's
> data.  And if we don't remove the tape that's full, we
> don't have space to do the next backup.  Any
> suggestions, other than make sure we remove teh tapes
> when they are full? :)

Suggestion above.  BTW, s/full/used/g.

-- 
Jay Lessert                               jay_lessert AT accelerant DOT net
Accelerant Networks Inc.                       (voice)1.503.439.3461
Beaverton OR, USA                                (fax)1.503.466.9472