Following my quest for larger tape backup solutions, I hadn't considered an
autoloader, because I don't know how they work. Silly me...

Can anyone please tell me whether I have to control the individual tape
cartridges in the autoloader, or do all the tapes magically concatenate to
form what seems to Solaris to be a much larger single tape cartridge.

Many thanks for any help,
Andy.

Andy Lennard wrote:
> Following my quest for larger tape backup solutions, I hadn't considered an
> autoloader, because I don't know how they work. Silly me...
> Can anyone please tell me whether I have to control the individual tape
> cartridges in the autoloader, or do all the tapes magically concatenate to
> form what seems to Solaris to be a much larger single tape cartridge.

Andy,
Solaris itself does not provide commands to manipulate a
tape changer device.

Use amanda (www.amanda.org, OSS) or Solstice Enterprise Backup
(sbu, now ebu -- legato network rebadged) or Veritas NetBackup
to do this.

What you choose does inter-relate to what hardware you have too.

mcbofh

In comp.sys.sun.admin Andy Lennard <ck_karisma@scrub-this.hotmail.com> wrote:
> Following my quest for larger tape backup solutions, I hadn't considered an
> autoloader, because I don't know how they work. Silly me...

> Can anyone please tell me whether I have to control the individual tape
> cartridges in the autoloader, or do all the tapes magically concatenate to
> form what seems to Solaris to be a much larger single tape cartridge.

> Many thanks for any help,
> Andy.

While some autoloaders will automatically concatenate tapes, I've never
found this useful.

In general you need something to control the tape if you want to do
unattended backups. If you are going to do manual backups, you can
just push the buttons on the autoloader.

The most common unattended solutions I've seen are Amanda (open source)
and Solstice; there are others.

Note that these solutions are more than just tape control. They also
control and schedule the backup process.

Amanda, for example, looks at all the filesystems that need to be backed
up and schedules appropriate levels for each based on previous backups
so that each backup fits on one tape with a maximum defined period between
level 0 backups.

One thing to concider when choosing an autoloader is the number of tapes
it can hold. You will want to dedicate one slot to a cleaning tape which
will effect how far back in time your backups go.

--
Jim Pennino

Remove -spam-sux to reply.

In article <40A33AC4.3040907@optusnet.com.au>, McBofh <james.N0SPAm.mcpherson@optusnet.com.au> writes:
> Andy Lennard wrote:
> > Following my quest for larger tape backup solutions, I hadn't considered an
> > autoloader, because I don't know how they work. Silly me...
> > Can anyone please tell me whether I have to control the individual tape
> > cartridges in the autoloader, or do all the tapes magically concatenate to
> > form what seems to Solaris to be a much larger single tape cartridge.
>
> Andy,
> Solaris itself does not provide commands to manipulate a
> tape changer device.
>
> Use amanda (www.amanda.org, OSS) or Solstice Enterprise Backup
> (sbu, now ebu -- legato network rebadged) or Veritas NetBackup
> to do this.
>
> What you choose does inter-relate to what hardware you have too.
>
> mcbofh

While this is true,
It might be that the command

mt offline

steps to the next tape.
At least I remember that a DAT tape worked that way, maybe some
jumpers need to be set at the tape drive.


--
Michael Tosch
IT Specialist
HP Managed Services Germany
Phone +49 2407 575 313
Mail: michael.tosch:hp.com

McBofh <james.N0SPAm.mcpherson@optusnet.com.au> writes:

> Solaris itself does not provide commands to manipulate a tape
> changer device.

If the OP wants a utility that only does simple 'insert tape in
drive' functionality, look at mtx:

http://mtx.badtux.net/

--
David Magda <dmagda at ee.ryerson.ca>, http://www.magda.ca/
Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under
the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well
under the new. -- Niccolo Machiavelli, _The Prince_, Chapter VI