tape volume usage

[Linda Lux]

we replaced new DLT tapes when the fbackup said 'volume used more than 100 times', however
the way the person did it caused the new tapes to retain the 100 times used. Is there any way to write to the tapes to reset the uasge - we have brand new tapes saying they have been used 100 + times.

[Bill Hassell]

Easy. The usage counter is in the first data record on the tape, a header created by fbackup. Just do this:

tar tvf /dev/rmt/0m /etc/copyright

And now fbackup will see them as new tapes. The 100 use limitation sounds like you are not using a config file and that is really slowing you down. Create this config file, something like /etc/fbackup.conf

blocksperrecord 4096
records 64
checkpointfreq 4096
readerprocesses 6
maxretries 5
retrylimit 5000000
maxvoluses 200
filesperfsm 2000

then run fbackup with the -c option as in:

fbackup -c /etc/fbackup.conf ...

This changes the use count to a maximum of 200, about right for DLT drives. It also runs 6 reader processes to speed up the backup as well as increase the blocksize and filespersm.

[Linda Lux]

Thank you I did do a tar but I used a file in my directory - I will re-run with the command.
As far as the usage - what happened was the operator got the message about the tape usage then instead of replyig to the messages - put in a new tape and responded with yes - the new tape had the 100 times written to it then

[Bill Hassell]

My example should have read:

tar cvf /dev/rmt/

It doesn't matter whether you use /etc/copyright or files in /tmp or whatever. Just overwrite the tape with something other than fbackup.

The example I showed simply lists the contents of your tape if it was recorded with tar. you'll know that the tape was correctly overwritten if this command:

frecover -V - -f /dev/rmt/

produces an error that the tape is not an fbackup volume.