At 11:57 AM 9/25/2003 -0400, M3 Freak wrote:

Hello,

I have what may seem like a silly questions, but let me assure you, I have absolutely no idea how tape backups work. I've only just figured out why my RH9 system wasn't seeing the tape drive. Configuring amanda and administering it is a whole different thing!

Anyway, my question is basic. Last night I manually ran "amdump", and it completed successfully. I read the email amanda sent me, and it's now waiting for a "new tape". I know that I have to put in the new tape, label it, and then set up cron to run automatically tonight. However, before I put in the new tape, should I just issue an "eject" command to the drive to spit the tape out, or do I have to rewind it before ejecting it?

I haven't used a tape backup system before, so I don't know what the consequences are of rewinding tapes or not before ejecting them. I would very much appreciate suggestions/advice on this.

Thanks in advance.

Regards,

Kanwar

All tapes drives that I know of  will rewind the tape if you merely
issue an "eject"  or "offline" command.   Only an audio cassette
unit (ok,  or a VCR)   will ever hand you a tape in a half-way state.
So ..... commanding  "rewind"  and then  "eject"  is redundant.
But certainly not harmful!

Deb Baddorf


-------------------
Deb Baddorf         baddorf AT fnal DOT gov              840-2289
"Nobody told me that living happily ever after would be such hard work ..."
S. White                                            <IXOYE><