Whats happens if I use a no rewind device for a single fbackup?

[Dennis Handly]

>It would be great if there was an explanation with the written warning that told you why the no rewind device shouldn't be used.

Probably the obvious, if you think you can append backups to the tape, you would get a big surprise if they were overwritten.

[grahamswilson]

I'm also not sure why the documentation says what it does...but what I can tell you for sure is that there is NO way to put multiple, seperate fbackup sessions onto the same tape. Whatever device you use, it will always rewind, and by design will therefore always OVERWRITE whatever is on the tape...there is no WAY to append one fbackup to another...

(It's something to do with the clever way fbackup stores its index - which has to be at the beginning of the tape I believe.)

This is a shame as fbackup is pretty good...and it still sounds like HP are possibly removing it at some point too...

[N Ward]

Yes it does seem strange.. The tapes are being read ok too, which is good news.

[Bill Hassell]

> ...it does seem strange..

Not at all. fbackup, unlike tar or cpio, places a complete directory at the front of the tape. That's why you can list the complete contents of a tape (or even a multi-tape backup) in just a few seconds, whereas tar or cpio must read the entire tape to produce a contents listing. That's why fbackup doesn't care about the device file's rewind action. The tape will always be rewound by the program (which is more predictable than a driver option). If fbackup doesn't like the device file, it will tell you. The device file will not affect the backup.