Bob,

I don't run amdump dependent on amcheck output - amdump can fail
quite well on its own.

Rather I run amcheck during business hours to verify that I have
a proper tape in the drive. Just today we put WWWxx in the WWWVOLxx
drive but where able to find and recify the problem during business
today rather than having to fix/flush tomorrow.

[Yes, I realize those two systems have idioticly similar names, bit
 of an historical accident...]

> Lately, with the advent of some network viruses, I've had backups not occur
> when I run amcheck before running amdump. My script, which is run from
> crontab, checks to see if amcheck ran successfully before I allow amdump to
> run. I'm using samba to back up Windows servers across the network to my 
> Sun server. Is there any good reason to have this type of procedure in 
> place where amcheck must be successful before running amdump?
> 
> Also, I don't run amverify either because I lack the time during the backup
> window for this. I'm not sure this is necessary either. What is amverify 
> really checking? I don't think it checks what was dumped on tape vs what is
> on the disk. Is it necessary to make sure  you really have a valid backup?
> 
> Bob...
> 
> --
> Robert Zahn     UNIX Systems Administrator
> Oklahoma City Community College
> 7777 S. May Avenue
> Oklahoma City, Ok 73159
> bzahn AT zeus.okccc DOT edu    bzahn AT okccc DOT edu
> --