Reset Amanda and remove holding files

[Mark Hewitt]

I've installed a test installation of Amanda on one of our servers. Because it's not ready for commission yet it doesn't have any tapes ready to use. So I've been testing it with one tape. All seemed fine on the first run, but since the second it has been saying there are no tape available.

Firstly, how is that because my tapelist says

20081128104149 CARMEN03 reuse

Shouldn't it reuse a tape until it is full, or am I missing something?

The entire lot of files it is backing up is only about 70gb onto a 400gb tape, plus the files haven't changed at all since the first backup. Shouldn't it therefore be able to keep going on that one tape theoretically forever? As it only backs up changes, and there haven't been any.

Secondly it saying

*** A TAPE ERROR OCCURRED: [Could not find a tape to use].
There are 168G of dumps left in the holding disk.
They will be flushed on the next run.

I don't want them to be flushed on the next run. How can I just cancel the output have it remove the files and return everything to a base state ready to start again?

Of course I'll put in more tapes once I'm ready to go live with the system.

Best Regards

Mark Hewitt

[marozsas]

Hi Mark,

Shouldn't it reuse a tape until it is full, or am I missing something?

No. The tapes are reused after the data on it is expired.
dumpcycle, runspercycle and tapecycle all controls how much tapes you need to a complete cycle of backups.

The entire lot of files it is backing up is only about 70gb onto a 400gb tape, plus the files haven't changed at all since the first backup. Shouldn't it therefore be able to keep going on that one tape theoretically forever? As it only backs up changes, and there haven't been any.

This is not the amanda way. Data is not appended to a tape. Every backup needs a new tape or a old tape with expired data.

I don't want them to be flushed on the next run. How can I just cancel the output have it remove the files and return everything to a base state ready to start again?

You can manually remove the data on the holding disk (rm -rf ) and run "amcleanup" after that.

[Mark Hewitt]

Ah. All that explains everything, and puts my mind at rest that my installation is functioning correctly.

Many thanks for your help.