Amanda-Users

Re: Spanning multiple tapes

2003-11-17 00:52:13
Subject: Re: Spanning multiple tapes
From: Danny Ybarra <dannyybarra AT yahoo DOT com>
To: gene.heskett AT verizon DOT net, amanda-users AT amanda DOT org
Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2003 21:50:22 -0800 (PST)
I found this statement in the WHATS.NEW file.  Can you
explain what it means?  Sorry for being such a newbie
but I really want to start using Amanda.

* MULTIPLE TAPES IN ONE RUN

I've rewritten the taper - it now supports one run
spanning multiple tapes if you have a tape-changer. 
The necessary changes in support of this have also
been made to driver and reporter - planner already had
support.  There are a couple other places that should
probably be updated, like amcheck.  Dumps are not
split across tapes - when taper runs into the end of a
tape,
it loads the next tape and tells driver to try sending
the dump again.

If you are feeling brave, set "runtapes" to something
other than 1.

The new taper also keeps the tape open the entire time
it is writing the files out - no more having amchecks
or other accesses/rewinds in the middle of the run
screw you royally if they hit when the tape is closed
for writing a filemark.


--- Gene Heskett <gene.heskett AT verizon DOT net> wrote:
> On Sunday 16 November 2003 22:21, Danny Ybarra
> wrote:
> >Ok I'm confused then.  If you have a list of
> entries
> >in your list how do you tell amanda what entries go
> on
> >what tape if you have a autoloader?
> 
> You don't, thats all up to the 'planner'.  You can
> hint as to how its 
> supposed to order things a wee bit by use of the
> 'dumporder' 
> directive in your amanda.conf.
> 
> >Also will it just prompt you to put another tape in
> if you
> >are using a single HP DAT drive?
> 
> Possibly one of the changer scripts, like
> chg-manual, might do this.
> Here I use chg-scsi, and its totally silent at the
> console, sending 
> you an email if something goes toes up.  As amanda
> is designed to be 
> run in the middle of the night by cron, it really
> doesn't expect 
> there to be a human 'lifeguard' around in case
> something gets a tummy 
> ache.  So it handles the errors it knows howto
> handle, or sends you 
> an email so you can handle it the next day and then
> goes silently 
> away.
> 
> >--- Gene Heskett <gene.heskett AT verizon DOT net> wrote:
> >> On Sunday 16 November 2003 01:18, Danny Ybarra
> >>
> >> wrote:
> >> >I'm new to amanda but I read that amanda now
> spans
> >> >multiple tapes.  How do you set that up on a
> Dell
> >>
> >> 132T
> >>
> >> >LTO Autoloader?  I also want to use that feature
> on
> >>
> >> a
> >>
> >> >regular single HP DAT drive.
> >>
> >> Amanda can use more than one tape, however it
> cannot
> >> span a single
> >> disklist entry to two or more tapes.  Each
> disklist
> >> entry must be
> >> smaller than 1 tape.
> >>
> >> I'm watching amanda use 2 tapes here, and just
> saw
> >> it switch to the
> >> next tape.  Unforch, the file it failed on was
> over
> >> half a tape, so
> >> it wasted about 1.5 gigs in changing the tapes.
> >> Looks like I'll need
> >> to re-arrange that entry into 2 or 3 to make it
> into
> >> smaller pieces.
> >> I'm seeing, in the status reports, that amanda
> seems
> >> to be ignoreing
> >> my dumporder "STSTSTST", as its often been seen
> to
> >> do a 70 meg DLE, a
> >> 600Mb DLE, then a 2.1Gb DLE and a 1.1Gb DLE, in
> that
> >> order while
> >> filling up a teeny 4Gb tape which wound up with:
> >>
> >> dumped          :  12   7721415k   7503717k
> >> (102.90%) ( 22.21%)
> >> wait for writing:   8   3018755k   2801057k
> >> (107.77%) (  8.68%)
> >> wait to flush   :   0         0k         0k
> >> (100.00%) (  0.00%)
> >> writing to tape :   1   2296810k   2296810k
> >> (100.00%) (  6.61%)
> >> failed to tape  :   0         0k         0k (
> >> 0.00%) (  0.00%)
> >> taped           :   3   2405850k   2405850k
> >> (100.00%) (  6.92%)
> >>   tape 1        :   3   2405850k   2405850k
> >> DailySet1-28
> >>   tape 2        :   0         0k         0k
> >> DailySet1-01
> >>
> >> which says I'll have to run a flush in the
> morning
> >> as its going to EOT
> >> the second tape with quite a bit left in /dumps.
> >> 3018755k+2296810k
> >> will be about a 1.6Gb overflow, and my indice
> saver
> >> will fail with
> >> EOT.
> >>
> >> Suggested change to planner algorythm:  When
> >> runtapes is >1, juggle
> >> the order to achieve a best fit within the
> tapetypes
> >> capacity as
> >> entered in amanda.conf, overriding the
> 'dumporder'
> >> specified, setting
> >> up a seperate list for each allowed tape.
> >>
> >> And even greater modifcation would be to write
> that
> >> amount of data,
> >> then change tapes even without hitting EOT,
> thereby
> >> saving the time
> >> and wear on the drive it wastes in writing till
> EOT
> >> is encountered
> >> before doing the tape change.  In this case it
> would
> >> have saved about
> >> an 1 hr & 9 mins, or used that time to put about
> >> another gigabyte of
> >> smaller DLE's on the first tape used tonight.
> >>
> >> Just my $0.02.  That, and another buck, might get
> >> you a cuppa most
> >> places :-)
> >>
> >> --
> >> Cheers, Gene
> >> AMD K6-III@500mhz 320M
> >> Athlon1600XP@1400mhz  512M
> >> 99.27% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV
> >> hillbilly
> >> Yahoo.com attornies please note, additions to
> this
> >> message
> >> by Gene Heskett are:
> >> Copyright 2003 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all
> rights
> >> reserved.
> >
> >__________________________________
> >Do you Yahoo!?
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> 
> -- 
> Cheers, Gene
> AMD K6-III@500mhz 320M
> Athlon1600XP@1400mhz  512M
> 99.27% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV
> hillbilly
> Yahoo.com attornies please note, additions to this
> message
> by Gene Heskett are:
> Copyright 2003 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights
> reserved.
> 


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