On Wed, 31 Jan 2001, Rick Meidinger wrote:
> - What changer script(s) have you tried?
> chg-multi
chg-multi is probably not what you want to use. I haven't tried it
myself but it sounds like it can be made to work if you configure your
Treefrog to operate in gravity mode. The Treefrog documentation might
call this by a different name such as sequential.
> Would have loved to try chg-scsi, but it doesn't compile on my system.
Have you posted the pertinent information? The author is usually
listening and might be interested in getting it to build on BSDI.
He got it working with FreeBSD so it shouldn't(?) take much more
effort to get it going on BSDI.
> - Have you determined the device name for the changer?
> sg0
>
> - Does BSDI have chio? If yes, are you able to control the changer with it?
> Nope.
>
> - If no chio, have you tried mtx?
> Yes, but I gotten anywhere with it.
Doesn't BSDI come with _any_ SCSI media changer control software? If
not I think I would complain to the company about that. If they
really don't have a recommended solution I would try to get mtx, chio,
or chg-scsi to build and run. In the mean time chg-multi should at
least allow you to run in gravity/sequential mode.
The thing to realize here is amanda does not have built in changer
support. Amanda allows for changer support, through the use of a
changer script that calls out to whatever software is needed to
control the changer you have. This is a flexible design that allows
for new devices to be supported by the addition of an appropriate
script, but it means you first have to have the low-level software
to control the changer itself. (Unless you can get chg-scsi to
work.)
Some sort of SCSI media changer software typically comes with the OS
these days, and then there are applications like mtx that have been
around for a while in various versions. The changer scripts that
come with amanda are samples that you can use with common existing
changer software but they are just a starting place. If you need
something different or more exotic it's easy to swap in something
else or modify an existing script to do what you need.
A few years ago I needed to set up a changer with an OS that came
with its own media changer software that amanda didn't have an
existing changer script for, and chg-scsi didn't exist yet. By
looking at the docs and the existing scripts I was able to write my
own in a few days with normal interruptions. Uninterrupted it would
have taken a day at most, probably less.
-Mitch
