BACKUP/NOASSIST & MOUNT/NOASSIST

[Rob Kersey]

Mount/Noassist times out after 3600 seconds. (Depending on the setting SYSGEN param of MVTIMEOUT)

When does Backup/Noassist timeout?

Or do you just get

%BACKUP-I-READYWRITE, mount volume 1 on MKA600: for writing
Enter "YES" when ready:

Can it be set to timeout after 3600 seconds as well?

As I want to use it in a batch job!

[Martin P.J. Zinser]

Hello,

if you are running a batch /noassist is not supposed to work anyhow, from the help:

The /NOASSIST qualifier has no
effect if the logical name SYS$COMMAND points to a device that
is not a terminal (as is the case when you run BACKUP in a batch
job).

Greetings, Martin

[Ian McKerracher]

I have a similar requirement to Rob i.e. I don't want a batch backup job, which runs unattended during the middle of the night, to ask for operator assistance and prevent subsequent jobs from executing. I would prefer a message to be logged and the backup job to abort.

I agree with Martin that the documentation states that a BACKUP/NOASSIST combination is not intended for batch jobs. But there is a question on Ask The Wizard (see BACKUP,Tapes and Operator Assistance?) where the answer implies that either BACKUP/NOASSIST or MOUNT/NOASSIST is the solution.

[Ian Miller.]

Ian, I think you are reffering to
http://h71000.www7.hp.com/wizard/wiz_7395.html

I usally am initialising the tape first so the INIT command fails if no tape is loaded and the job exits with an error.

I can't see the text in help that Martin referred to but parhaps you could work around it by assigning SYS$COMMAND to OPA0: for the duration of the mount command
$ DEFINE/USER SYS$COMMAND OPA0:
$ MOUNT/NOASSIST....

[Bojan Nemec]

If you use BACKUP without /NOASSIST, and there are no enabled operators on the system the backup will end with an %BACKUP-F-NOOPER error.

Bojan

[Jan van den Ende]

...
which you can conditionally react upon (well, along with other -F- errors) with
$ ON SEVERE_ERROR THEN GOTO

Cheers.

Have one on me.

Jan

[Ian Miller.]

Bojan, I think the issue is what happens if there are enabled operators but for a particular job you want the BACKUP to end with a error rather than ask.

[Volker Halle]

Rob,

please note that MOUNT/NOASSIST does NOT wait until MVTIMEOUT expires, it will return with an appropriate error (after a couple of mount/device specific internal retries). This may take up to 2-3 minutes...

Example:
(MVTIMEOUT=3600 on this system).

$ show time
10-NOV-2004 11:41:06
$ mount/noassist/over=id $1$mkb0:
%MOUNT-F-MEDOFL, medium is offline
$ show time
10-NOV-2004 11:43:05

So first trying to mount the tape with MOUNT/FOR/NOASSIST before letting BACKUP use it, will probably be the best method to detect a problem with the device/medium.

Volker.

[Bojan Nemec]

Ian,

In my post I try to explain what happens when you use the /ASSIST qualifier. It will not work if an operator leaves withot logout (which is a security issue).

I use the backup command as it was in the old days when backup was not able to mount tapes. So first INIT if needed (as you) and then MOUNT/FOREIGN.

Bojan

[Ian Miller.]

Bojan - I know we are all just being helpful here and its a very good thing.

Volker - are you saying that the behavior of MOUNT/FOR/NOASSIST is different to what BACKUP/NOASSIST does when mounting tapes?

If so then this suggests doing the MOUNT first is a good thing.

[Jan van den Ende]

Ian,

_OUR_ main reason for mounting the tape first, is that we can than do good label checking, and take appropriate action.

-- for unattended backups, we REQUIRE the tape to have the correct label, or be a new, unlabelled tape. If using a tape loader, human error IS to be expected (hopefully not too often),and needs to be prevented from causing more damage than "just" a day's backup skipped.

Cheers.

Have one on me.

Jan

[Volker Halle]

Ian,


Volker - are you saying that the behavior of MOUNT/FOR/NOASSIST is different to what BACKUP/NOASSIST does when mounting tapes?


Example from the same system:
(there is no tape in the drive)

$ backup/noassist *.com mkb0:x.bck/save/rew/ign=label
%MOUNT-F-MEDOFL, medium is offline
%BACKUP-I-READYWRITE, mount volume 1 on _$1$MKB0: for writing
Enter "YES" when ready:

You have to abort this with CTRL/Y (QUIT won't work).

If the same command is run in batch job, then you would get:

%MOUNT-I-OPRQST, medium is offline
%MOUNT-I-OPRQST, Please mount volume X in device _$1$MKB0: (AXPVMS)
BACKUP requests: Saveset X.BCK, Volume number 01, write ENABLED

Even if OPA0: is not logged in, it may still be enabled as an OPERATOR terminal. So once I did

$ DEF/USER SYS$COMMAND OPA0:
$ REPLY/DISABLE

the BACKUP command in the batch job immediately finished with:

%MOUNT-F-BATCHNOOPR, no operator available to service batch request

So yes, the behaviour of /NOASSIST is different when used with MOUNT or BACKUP.

Volker.

[Ian Miller.]

Thnak you Volker, I learn things here very day :-)

[Jan van den Ende]

Volker,


$ backup/noassist *.com mkb0:x.bck/save/rew/ign=label
%MOUNT-F-MEDOFL, medium is offline
%BACKUP-I-READYWRITE, mount volume 1 on _$1$MKB0: for writing
Enter "YES" when ready:


I am not really in a position to test this now (test system is long-time in use for some big test sequence), but does the above react to the ON SEVERE_ERROR, or is it converted to Informational before DCL is allowed to react?
In the second case, that would mean that Rob would have to discard my previous answer :-(

Cheers.

Have one on me.

Jan

[Martin P.J. Zinser]

Hi,

well in a batch it explicitly gets converted to -I-, so no severe error to catch. Here is
a log of a test I just ran:

$ on severe_error then goto err_exit
$ backup/noass *.com $1$mkb400:x.bck/save/rew/ign=label
%MOUNT-I-OPRQST, medium is offline
%MOUNT-I-OPRQST, Please mount volume X in device _$1$MKB400: (NC4001)
BACKUP requests: Saveset X.BCK, Volume number 01, write ENABLED


The same executed interactively has status -F-.

Greetings, Martin

[Volker Halle]

Jan,

BACKUP catches/handles the %MOUNT-F-MEDOFL condition, so it never gets to DCL. Note this happens when run INTERACTIVELY and you can't get out of it except with CTRL/Y.

Volker.