Fbackup

[KPS]

Looking to find out if there's some sort of logging that fbackup does when you run it. I have backups failing because there's supposively another process writing to the same DLT Tapedrive, but we're not aware of anything else that's trying to write to this drive. I was hoping to go through some sort of fbackup log that could maybe explain to me what other job or process is writing to this tapedrive while I'm trying to run the backup I have normally scheduled. If anyone knows of a place that fbackup keeps a rolling log to look at these events, that would be helpful.

Here's the log from the failed backup and the reason of the failure:

fbackup(3024): writing volume 1 to the output file /dev/rmt/3m
fbackup(3055): total file blocks read for backup: 135847834
fbackup(3056): total blocks written to output file /dev/rmt/3m: 136061490
fbackup(1030): warnings encountered during backup
br_backup: Invoking fbackup. See /var/sam/log/br_log for details.
fbackup(1004): session begins on Fri Aug 15 00:05:57 2003
fbackup(3041): output file /dev/rmt/3m is currently being used and not available
fbackup(3019): would you like to enter a new output file?
fbackup(3004): writer aborting
fbackup(1002): Backup did not complete : Reader or Writer process exit

[Pete Randall · Accepted solution]

Ken,

How about using lsof to track down the process which supposedly has /dev/rmt/3m open?


Pete

[Stefan Farrelly]

I think the best way to do this is before your backup starts ensure the tape drive is available;

mt -t /dev/rmt/3m rewind (just rewinds the tape).

If this doesnt work try to find out who is using it;
fuser /dev/rmt/3m >/tmp/log 2>&1
ps -ef|grep 3m >>/tmp/log 2>&1

Then you can either abort or sleep 60 and try again. This is probably the best way to find out who is using it. Fbackup itself wont tell you, you need to do other commands to find out.

[KPS]

Both of those sound like good things to try thanks guys.

[Helen French]

The backup log file is /var/sam/log/br_log. But to troubleshoot, I would check the following:

1) Run a normal tar or cpio backup and see if it still says the tape being used by another process.

2) Check tape drive and media. Clean if needed.

3) Check fbackup on a different drive if available.

4) Check other processes using tape drive with ps -aef, lsof and glance

5) Install latest patches.