Hi List, I believe that I have run into a problem in the way that the traditional taper scan algorithm tries to detect that all tapes have been inspected and would value any feedback or suggestions.
Our installation is from the Amanda 3.3.0 Debian package, configured to use Taper::Scan::traditional and Changer::robot. On this particular run, the content of our tape libray looked like this: X ... X 1* 3 2* X where X represents a non-reusable tape and 1,2,3 represent three reusable tapes ordered from oldest to newest (but not residing in the library in that order). Tapes marked with a * are barcode labeled (alas, not all of them are). What happens when all three reusable tapes are needed for a backup run is, according to the taper debug log, that scan stage 1 finds tape 1, then tape 2, then fails to find tape 3. That is as expected. Not scan stage 2 starts with the next slot after tape 2 and sequentially scans all tapes up to tape 1, where the scan terminates and reports that "all slots have been loaed". Which is wrong, tape 3 was never touched because stage 1 has skipped over it. A little research showed that the condition for terminating scan stage 2 is (paraphrased) "inspecting a tape slot that has been inspected before", which is quite all right if _only_ stage 2 is run because it leaves no uninspected "holes" in the tape library. But when both stages are run this can lead to unnecessarily failed taper runs. So you say, put barcodes on all your tapes then. But scan stage 1 will never return an unlabeled tape (according to the documentation). So supposing we need three tapes out of an library stocked like this: X ... X 1* U* U* 2* where U represents an unlabeled tape. Again stage 1 will return tapes 1 and 2, then stage 2 will terminate without suggesting any of the unlabeled tapes. So am I right in thinking that this is a bug? Regards, Ralph -- Ralph Rößner CAPCom AG < http://www.capcom.de > Lise - Meitner - Straße 10, 64293 Darmstadt, Deutschland Phone +49 6151 155 910, Fax +49 6151 155 909 Mobil: +49 170 2212 411 Vorstand: Luc Neumann (Vorsitzender) Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats: Herbert Kuhlmann Sitz der Gesellschaft: Darmstadt, Registergericht: Darmstadt HRB 8090
