Problem solved! Steve Ellis pointed that there was a problem with my stinit command.
As you'll all notice below (my original message/post), the first output of stinit is identifying /dev/nst0 and /dev/nst0l as mode 0 and 1, respectively. But this output is not correct, it's a bug in version 0.9b (which is part of Redhat and CentOS distributions, as well as others). Stinit shows that nst0 is mode 0, but this device is actually using mode 1 (with compression enabled). The device I was using to run backups (/dev/nst0l), was not really operating in mode 1 (with compression), but in mode 2 (without compression), hence all the problem. Looks like the problem was filed as a bug by Debian users, but it clearly affects other distributions. Here is the URL (thanks again to Steve): http://www.mail-archive.com/debian-bugs-d...@lists.debian.org/msg379503.html After removing mt-st version 0.9b, getting version 1.1 source code (there is no rpm package of this version for Redhat/CentOS), compiling and installing it, then stinit started to output the correct information: [r...@br01 ~]# stinit -v -v Trying to open database '/etc/stinit.def'. Open succeeded. stinit, processing tape 0 Mode 1, name '/dev/nst0' Mode 2, name '/dev/nst0l' Mode 3, name '/dev/nst0m' Mode 4, name '/dev/nst0a' I know this is an operating system problem, but it would be helpful to have it documented somewhere on bacula's website (maybe Wiki?) since it could be affecting other RedHat/CentOS users. AFAIK mt-st 1.1 will be part of Redhat version 6. Cheers, Rodrigo. -----Original Message----- From: Rodrigo Ferraz Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 2010 9:23 AM To: bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net Cc: Suporte Concept Netservices Subject: LTO-3 tape not compressing data/premature end of tape space Hello We've been facing this problem for a while and unfortunately we are still unable to find an effective solution, so any help would be greatly appreciated. The problem: bacula is only filling LTO-3 until exactly 394.38 GB and not going any further a single byte. Looks like tape compression is not taking place. Bconsole shows this error below and then keeps asking to mount another volume: 01-Sep 00:57 br01 JobId 546: End of medium on Volume "S002" Bytes=423,463,799,808 Blocks=6,564,108 at 01-Sep-2010 00:57. This is tapeinfo output: [r...@br01 ~]# tapeinfo -f /dev/sg1 Product Type: Tape Drive Vendor ID: 'IBM ' Product ID: 'ULTRIUM-HH3 ' Revision: '93G7' Attached Changer: No SerialNumber: '1H10077966' MinBlock:1 MaxBlock:16777215 SCSI ID: 6 SCSI LUN: 0 Ready: yes BufferedMode: yes Medium Type: 0x38 Density Code: 0x44 BlockSize: 0 DataCompEnabled: yes DataCompCapable: yes DataDeCompEnabled: yes CompType: 0x1 DeCompType: 0x1 BOP: yes Block Position: 0 [r...@br01 ~]# This is mt status: [r...@br01 ~]# mt -f /dev/nst0l status SCSI 2 tape drive: File number=0, block number=0, partition=0. Tape block size 0 bytes. Density code 0x44 (no translation). Soft error count since last status=0 General status bits on (41010000): BOT ONLINE IM_REP_EN [r...@br01 ~]# And this is bacula-sd configuration: [r...@br01 ~]# cat /etc/bacula/bacula-sd.conf Director { Name = br01 Password = "abadede" } Storage { Name = br01 SDPort = 9103 WorkingDirectory = "/var/lib/bacula" Pid Directory = "/var/run" Maximum Concurrent Jobs = 1 } Device { Name = LTO-3 Drive Index = 0 Autochanger = no Archive Device = /dev/nst0l Maximum Changer Wait = 3d AutomaticMount = yes AlwaysOpen = yes Media Type = LTO-3 RemovableMedia = yes Offline On Unmount = no Spool Directory = /var/lib/bacula/spool Maximum Spool Size = 35gb RandomAccess = no LabelMedia = yes Hardware End of Medium = No Fast Forward Space File = No Two EOF = no BSF at EOM = no } Messages { Name = Standard director = br01 = all } [r...@br01 ~]# As you'll notice we are using the mode1 device (nst0l), with compression enabled so that we can go further than 400 GB. As per stinit: [r...@br01 ~]# stinit -v -v Trying to open database '/etc/stinit.def'. Open succeeded. stinit, processing tape 0 Mode 0, name '/dev/nst0' Mode 1, name '/dev/nst0l' Mode 2, name '/dev/nst0m' Mode 3, name '/dev/nst0a' The manufacturer is 'IBM', product is 'ULTRIUM-HH3', and revision '93G7'. Mode 1 definition: scsi2logical=1 can-bsr=1 auto-lock=0 two-fms=0 drive-buffering=1 buffer-writes read-ahead=1 async-writes=1 can-partitions=0 fast-mteom=1 timeout=800 long-timeout=14400 blocksize=0 density=0x44 compression=1 Mode 2 definition: scsi2logical=1 can-bsr=1 auto-lock=0 two-fms=0 drive-buffering=1 buffer-writes read-ahead=1 async-writes=1 can-partitions=0 fast-mteom=1 timeout=800 long-timeout=14400 blocksize=0 density=0x44 compression=0 Mode 3 definition: scsi2logical=1 can-bsr=1 auto-lock=0 two-fms=0 drive-buffering=1 buffer-writes read-ahead=1 async-writes=1 can-partitions=0 fast-mteom=1 timeout=800 long-timeout=14400 blocksize=0 density=0x42 compression=1 Mode 4 definition: scsi2logical=1 can-bsr=1 auto-lock=0 two-fms=0 drive-buffering=1 buffer-writes read-ahead=1 async-writes=1 can-partitions=0 fast-mteom=1 timeout=800 long-timeout=14400 blocksize=0 density=0x40 compression=1 stinit, processing tape 1 Initialized 1 tape device. [r...@br01 ~]# Other information: Bacula Version: 5.0.1 (24 February 2010) Tape: Dell PowerVault LTO3-060 (IBM Ultrium HH3) O.S.: Vmware ESXi 4 (fully patched) and tape configured in pass-through mode Guest O.S.: CentOS 5.5 Btape tests work fine, without any error. Thanks. Rodrigo Ferraz CONCEPT NETSERVICES www.conceptnetservices.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF.net Dev2Dev email is sponsored by: Show off your parallel programming skills. Enter the Intel(R) Threading Challenge 2010. http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-thread-sfd _______________________________________________ Bacula-users mailing list Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users
