On Sat, Aug 05, 2000 at 09:25:11PM +0100, Paul Broadwith wrote:
> I am using an IoMega Ditto 2Gb drive connected to the parallel port
>
> I have tried a number of different backup software for Linux. Each one
> reports at some points that the tape device is 'device busy'. The errors
> seem to be reported while the tape is in the process of a lengthy operation
> (for example rewinding). The software that reports the errors early is
> usually software that is not specifically designed for ftape, but 'any disk
> or streaming device'.
>
> Are the errors being caused by the software not being written for ftape
> (and therefore not understanding the delays that are involved with
> floppy/parallel port tape drives), ftape itself (which I doubt but thought
> I would ask!), my tape drive, or a combination?
You may like to take a look at /var/log/messages to see what ftape
says about `Device busy'.
ftape automatically locks the device when in use, so if a process
running in the background hasn't closed it (for example, because the
tape is still rewinding), then a new process started to handle
something else will not be able to open the device. I think at least
one backup program may be affected by this.
It could be a program timing out waiting for an operation on the
drive, but then it shouldn't really be saying `Device busy', but
`timeout' or something, so I doubt it is that.
Does plain old tar, cpio, afio, dump etc. get affected by this?
Robie.
--
Robie Basak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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