On Thu, Oct 25, 2007 at 08:24:34AM -0700, X_S wrote:
> Can someone clarify the tape label process for me?
> 
> Will NetBackup only label tapes the first time a tape is ever used and never 
> again? 
> 
> or will it also label tapes that have had valid images on it but are now 
> expired and put back into the "scratch" pool?

When the tape expires, it is not mounted or accessed.  So changing the
pool on an unassigned tape (including the automatic change of expired
tapes back to Scratch) does not affect the physical label.  When the
tape is assigned from the scratch pool and first used, the label is
verified and rewritten (with a possibly different volume pool).

You can of course explicitly change a label with 'bplabel'.

> And if I create the allow_media_overwrite entry in the vm.conf file,
> will netBackup attempt to write a label every time it mounts a
> "scratch" tape

ALLOW_MEDIA_OVERWRITE goes in bp.conf, not vm.conf, and it takes an
argument.  That argument specifies what non-netbackup labels it's
allowed to overwrite.  It should have no effect on existing NetBackup
labeled media or on blank media.

Do you have some concern about when a tape is mounted or written to?  

-- 
Darren Dunham                                           ddunham AT taos DOT com
Senior Technical Consultant         TAOS            http://www.taos.com/
Got some Dr Pepper?                           San Francisco, CA bay area
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