Hi all,
Is there a way that I can load an Ultrium tape located in the library magazine into a tape device via the command line.
Thanks
Ryan
Check with the changer device manufacturer, OEM, or VAR (value-added-resaler) to see if they have some device drivers and/or tools. If not, you can try the plain ordinary mt command to see if that gives you what you need. This Bacula code has a script to simplify the operation, and it's all based on mt.
I believe that Bacula script is a manual loader script that relies on an operator to load the tape and just notifies the operator to do so and then confirms it was done.
What you want is the actual mtx code. mtx is to libraries as mt is to the tape drive. You can find it here SourceForge.net: MTX: Media Changer Tools. Then you can open a terminal session, and do things like
# mt status
# mtx -f /dev/scsi/changer/c2t0d0 status
# mtx -f /dev/scsi/changer/c2t0d0 unload 10 0
# mtx -f /dev/scsi/changer/c2t0d0 load 16 0
# mt status
The above would see that a tape is in the drive, show the contents of all drives and slots with their barcodes, unload the tape in drive 0 to slot 10, then load the tape in slot 16 to drive 0, and finally double check the status of the drive.
Both Amanda and Bacula use mt and mtx and then have their own scripts for tying into those.
If you are using Veritas Netbackup (now owned by Symantec?) then it comes with commands to this, robtest, e.g.:
Run robtest and then type in:
s s (Scan Slots)
s d (Scan Drives)
m d2 s12 (move a volume from drive 2 to slot 12)...
You need to quit from robtest once you are done otherwise Netbackup will not work while waiting for robtest to release the tape library.