-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kern Sibbald Sent: Saturday, December 23, 2006 12:43 AM To: bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net Cc: Meidal, Knut Subject: Re: [Bacula-users] Bacula and tape ejects from Autoloader
On Friday 22 December 2006 23:15, Meidal, Knut wrote: > Hello, > > > > I'm currently considering setting up a small "below the radar" Bacula > installation. > > I happen to have NetApp NearStore VTLs with capacity on them, that I can use > as my back-end. > > > > VTL is a virtual tape library, i.e a collection of disk that presents itself > on a FibreChannel port as being a regular tape library. > > > > These VTLs are connected to a physical tape library. The backup application > doesn't see the physical tape library directly. > > The way it works is that I will define virtual libraries on the VTL, define > drives and slots, and assign to a server. This server thinks he's talking to > a regular tape library; mounts/reads/writes like always. > > The magic happens when the application or OS issues an "EJECT" command to > move a tape (it doesn't know it's a virtual tape) to the I/O slot. This question is not possible to answer because you are using a terminology that does not correspond to that which I know. There is to the best of my knowledge (in the Unix world) no "EJECT" command. On the contrary there are exist two commands that Bacula uses. One is the "offline" command, and normally will discharge a tape from a tape reader. This is equivalent to the mt offline command, and Bacula can do offlines at particular times on request -- in fact, it is an OS API done through ioctl(). The second is an "unload" command that unloads a cassette from an autoloader drive. This command is a SCSI control command that Bacula issues by calling a program named mtx on most Unix systems (FreeBSD typically uses a different program). Bacula does not directly issue SCSI command such as the unload, but relies on mtx to do so for it. mtx will unload a tape in a particular drive into a specified "slot", which must be empty. If your concept of "EJECT" corresponds to one of the above, then most likely it can be done in Bacula. =====================> My terminology might be a little skewed after too much Veritas NetBackup exposure... Anyway, my point about the "eject" is that this is not a _drive_ operation as such. It is not related to umount, or unload of the drives themselves. (A possible exception is if the tape is idle in a drive, it should be umounted, unloaded, and THEN put in the import/export slot without stopping by its ) What I'm looking for is the library control software (MTX) to recognize one or more tape slots as "Import/Export"... Let's say my library has 6 of those. I want MTX (or Bacula wrappers) to "eject V0123L2", which means to "move tape V0123L2 from whatever storage slot, and put in I/E slot 1" (If I/E slot 1 is full, pick the next available) The library cannot be opened to retrieve this tape. There are no (easy) ways of moving it other than using the library Web GUI, which is a pain, and cannot be scripted. The reason I bring this up is that the movement of a (virtual) tape to the "Import/Export" slot of a virtual library is what triggers the virtual library into transferring the data off the virtual tape(i.e a byte stream on disk) on to a physical tape. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV _______________________________________________ Bacula-users mailing list Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users
