make_tape_recovery has pax I/O error

[john flores]

I used the make_tape_recovery command as follows to produce a tape backup and the following output from the job has an I/O error concerning "pax" at the end. It probably did not effect the success of the tape since all indications are the tape was successfully made. I would just like to know if there is something I can do to get rid of this pax error.

/opt/ignite/bin/make_tape_recovery -I -x inc_entire=vg00 >>$outfile 2>&1
-------------------------------------------------------------

* Cleaning up old configuration file directories
* Creating local directories for configuration files and archive.

======= 11/11/05 03:25:23 CST Started /opt/ignite/bin/make_tape_recovery.
(Fri Nov 11 03:25:23 CST 2005)
@(#) Ignite-UX Revision C.6.2.241
@(#) net_recovery (opt) $Revision: 10.695 $

* Testing for necessary pax patch.
* Passed pax tests.
* Checking Versions of Ignite-UX filesets
* Creating System Configuration.
* /opt/ignite/bin/save_config -f
/var/opt/ignite/recovery/2005-11-11,03:25/system_cfg vg00
* Backing Up Volume Group /dev/vg00
* /usr/sbin/vgcfgbackup /dev/vg00
* Creating Map Files for Volume Group /dev/vg00
* /usr/sbin/vgexport -s -p -m /etc/lvmconf/vg00.mapfile /dev/vg00

* Backing Up Volume Group /dev/vg01
* /usr/sbin/vgcfgbackup /dev/vg01
* Creating Map Files for Volume Group /dev/vg01
* /usr/sbin/vgexport -s -p -m /etc/lvmconf/vg01.mapfile /dev/vg01

* Creating Control Configuration.
* Creating Archive File List
* Creating Archive Configuration

* /opt/ignite/lbin/make_arch_config -c
/var/opt/ignite/recovery/2005-11-11,03:25/archive_cfg -g
/var/opt/ignite/recovery/2005-11-11,03:25/flist -n 2005-11-11,03:25 -r
pa -b 64 -d Recovery\ Archive -t 1 -i 1 -m t
* Saving the information about archive to
/var/opt/ignite/recovery/previews
* Creating The Tape Archive
48185+0 records in
48185+0 records out
* /opt/ignite/data/scripts/make_sys_image -c n -d /dev/rmt/0mn -t n -s
local -n 2005-11-11,03:25 -m t -w
/var/opt/ignite/recovery/2005-11-11,03:25/recovery.log -u -R -g
/var/opt/ignite/recovery/2005-11-11,03:25/flist -a 7245030

* Preparing to create a system archive.

* Archiving contents of catfish via tar image to local device/dev/rmt/0mn.
pax: usr/bin/uuencode : I/O error
pax: usr/bin/uuencode : An unexpected end-of-file has occurred.
pax: usr/bin/uuencode : An unexpected end-of-file has occurred.
WARNING: The pax command returned a non-zero exit status (exit status 1).
* Creation of system archive complete.
NOTE: The following files are in the list of files that were on the
system, but they are no longer present. These files are not
included in the backup:
/var/tmp/ign_configure/make_sys_image.log

[mirco_1]

hi,

do yu have rewind the tape with mt command?

or the tape is corrupted.

DM.

[Simon Wickham_6]

Hi

Check that your tape device can be accessed both reading and writting to /dev/rmt/0mn.

1. Run mt -t /dev/rmt/0mn
2. /dev/rmt/0mn status
3. try and tar a file to /dev/rmt/0mn

Regards,
Simon

[john flores]

I'll test the tape drive again but I'm pretty sure it works fine. I've used it to create and restore tapes. I've been using device /dev/rmt/0m rather than 0mn.

[Steven E. Protter]

Hello John,

Perhaps the file going to the tape exceeds the capacity of the tape.

Usually this message indicates a bad spot on the tape. They develop these from time to time.

SEP

[Bill Hassell]

You definitely have an error on the tape, and no, the archive is not correctly saved. The pax program is very simple and knows nothing about tape drives so only the simple I/O error message is produced when there is a problem reading or writing the data. NOTE: The tape may be fine and the error refers to reading the file /usr/bin/uuencode. Look in syslog to see if there asre disk errors being reported.

[john flores]

Bill, Your answer got me looking at /usr/bin/uuencode
and I found it is not working right.
In testing it from the command line I'm getting a
"permission denied" from uuencode.
example:
catfish:/home/jflores $ uuencode km.out kme.out
sh: uuencode: Execute permission denied.
catfish:/home/jflores $ cd /usr/bin
catfish:/usr/bin $ ls -l uu*
-r-sr-xr-x 1 uucp bin 53248 Dec 9 2003 uucp
-r-xr-xr-x 1 bin bin 16384 Jan 6 2005 uudecode
-r-xr-xr-x 1 bin bin 16384 Nov 14 2000 uuencode

And you can see the permissions are correct!
~

[Bill Hassell · Accepted solution]

This definitely sounds like you have some disk problems. What do you see in /var/adm/syslog/syslog.log? "permission denied" is a catch-all error message and often misleads sysadmins into changing permissions. Since the displayed permissions are correct, the error message is referring to something else. As root, you should never get a permission issue which is another reason to suspect the integrity of the /usr mountpoint.

Hopefully, you have the online diagnostics loaded and running so you'll have lots of error messages. You can also verify the integrity of the mountpoint by using dd. Use the command: bdf /usr to find the source lvol. Suppose it is lvol6, so usee dd to read the entire volume:

dd if=/dev/vg00/rlvol6 of=/dev/null bs=128k

If this reports an I/O error, make sure you have a good backup and records for your volume groups.

[john flores]

You are right. I have error message in syslog and lvol7 /usr has read errors. No doubt this is the source of the problem.
Thank you.