Mammoth 2 tape configuration

[Monty]

I've been tasked with getting backups working with an older ExaByte
EZ17 tape library with a single Mammoth 2 tape drive in it, connected
to a SunBlade 2000 with a single 12000 MHz Sparcv9 CPU and 1 GB of
memory. The backup software is Netbackup 5.0 MP7 and I'm running into
the same error for every backp I try: "too many data blocks wirtten,
check tape/driver block size configuration", except I don't know where
to check or set that.

Looking through the ExaByte documentation on the Mammoth 2 drive, the
only reference I can find to block size is a description of the
physical layout of data on the tape, and the block size is listed as
"about 233". About? About what? On top of that, I know of no method
for setting a specific block size, but that doesn't meant there isn't
one.

I've tried several st.conf entries for this drive, including the
ExaByte supplied entry of

tape_config_list =
"EXABYTE Mammoth2","EXABYTE Mammoth2", "EXB-M2";
EXB-M2 = 1,0x36,0,0x1de39,0x28,0;

...but nothing's working. I'm open to suggestions short of buying new
equipment (not an option). For completeness, I'm including some
related (or not-so-related) system settings:

For Netbackup:

NET_BUFFER_SZ is 262144 (this may or may not apply...the backups are
local)
NUMBER_DATA_BUFFERS is 32
SIZE_DATA_BUFFERS is 524288

For Solaris 8, from /etc/system:

shared memory info
shmmax = 33554432
shmmin = 900
shmmni = 220
shmseg = 900

msginfo_msgmap = 512
_msgmnb = 65536
_msgmax = 8192
_msgmin = 256
_msgssz = 16
_msgseg = 8192
_msgtql = 512

seminfo_semmap = 64
_semmni = 1024
_semmns = 32767
_semmnu = 1024
_semmsl = 1200
_semopm = 900
_semume = 64

I can't think of what else might be useful.

Thanks in advance

[Richard B. Gilbert]

Monty wrote:
> I've been tasked with getting backups working with an older ExaByte
> EZ17 tape library with a single Mammoth 2 tape drive in it, connected
> to a SunBlade 2000 with a single 12000 MHz Sparcv9 CPU and 1 GB of
> memory. The backup software is Netbackup 5.0 MP7 and I'm running into
> the same error for every backp I try: "too many data blocks wirtten,
> check tape/driver block size configuration", except I don't know where
> to check or set that.
>
> Looking through the ExaByte documentation on the Mammoth 2 drive, the
> only reference I can find to block size is a description of the
> physical layout of data on the tape, and the block size is listed as
> "about 233". About? About what? On top of that, I know of no method
> for setting a specific block size, but that doesn't meant there isn't
> one.
>
> I've tried several st.conf entries for this drive, including the
> ExaByte supplied entry of
>
> tape_config_list =
> "EXABYTE Mammoth2","EXABYTE Mammoth2", "EXB-M2";
> EXB-M2 = 1,0x36,0,0x1de39,0x28,0;
>
> ...but nothing's working. I'm open to suggestions short of buying new
> equipment (not an option). For completeness, I'm including some
> related (or not-so-related) system settings:
>

<snip>

Neither the Exabyte software nor the Mammoth hardware are native to
Sun/Solaris. If there is an Exabyte newsgroup it might be a good place
to ask for help. Likewise a NetBackup news group.

Copies of the manual(s) should have shipped with the hardware and
software. If finding them is a problem, order new ones and take care of
them.

[Monty]

Ah, my apologies for posting here, then.

[Dave]

Monty wrote:
> I've been tasked with getting backups working with an older ExaByte
> EZ17 tape library with a single Mammoth 2 tape drive in it, connected
> to a SunBlade 2000 with a single 12000 MHz Sparcv9 CPU and 1 GB of
> memory.

Wow, they are some nice CPUs. Mine only run at a tenth of that in my Blade 2000!

I do not know how to solve your problem, but I know I would be tempted to add an
extra GB in that machine. 1 GB is really not enough in this day and age.

[Richard B. Gilbert]

Monty wrote:
> Ah, my apologies for posting here, then.

You weren't *wrong* to post here. It's just that comp.sys.sun.admin is
rather peripheral (sorry, couldn't resist) to your problem!

[Tristram Scott]

Monty <dale.s...@offutt.af.mil> wrote:
> I've been tasked with getting backups working with an older ExaByte
> EZ17 tape library with a single Mammoth 2 tape drive in it, connected
> to a SunBlade 2000 with a single 12000 MHz Sparcv9 CPU and 1 GB of
> memory. The backup software is Netbackup 5.0 MP7 and I'm running into
> the same error for every backp I try: "too many data blocks wirtten,
> check tape/driver block size configuration", except I don't know where
> to check or set that.
>
> Looking through the ExaByte documentation on the Mammoth 2 drive, the
> only reference I can find to block size is a description of the
> physical layout of data on the tape, and the block size is listed as
> "about 233". About? About what? On top of that, I know of no method
> for setting a specific block size, but that doesn't meant there isn't
> one.
>
> I've tried several st.conf entries for this drive, including the
> ExaByte supplied entry of
>
> tape_config_list =
> "EXABYTE Mammoth2","EXABYTE Mammoth2", "EXB-M2";
> EXB-M2 = 1,0x36,0,0x1de39,0x28,0;
>
> ...but nothing's working. I'm open to suggestions short of buying new
> equipment (not an option). For completeness, I'm including some
> related (or not-so-related) system settings:
>

I haven't used an Exabyte Mammoth drive at all, but since it seems to be a
scsi tape drive, I would start by making it work as one of those. Once you
are certain it is correctly attached, and can read and write blocks of
data, then move on to worry about configuring it to speak to Netbackup.

Has this device always been attached to the SB 2000? Does it show up as
the default tape device? What devices do you see in /dev/rmt?

If it is there, can you talk to it with mt? I have two tape drives on the
chicken, but only one has a tape in it at the moment:

chicken 21% ls /dev/rmt
0 0cb 0hb 0lb 0mb 0u 1 1cb 1hb 1lb 1mb 1u
0b 0cbn 0hbn 0lbn 0mbn 0ub 1b 1cbn 1hbn 1lbn 1mbn 1ub
0bn 0cn 0hn 0ln 0mn 0ubn 1bn 1cn 1hn 1ln 1mn 1ubn
0c 0h 0l 0m 0n 0un 1c 1h 1l 1m 1n 1un
chicken 22% mt stat
/dev/rmt/0n: no tape loaded or drive offline
chicken 23% mt -f /dev/rmt/1cn stat
HP DAT-72 tape drive:
sense key(0x0)= No Additional Sense residual= 0 retries= 0
file no= 24 block no= 0
chicken 24%

If you can use mt to move to end of media, rewind etc, then try writing
something to it using tar, and then reading it back.

If all of that seems okay, it would suggest the problem is with the
software configuration. For that, I suggest you seek help outside of
comp.sys.sun.admin. Alternatively, you could use tar or ufsdump to do the
backup for you.

If you don't manage to speak to the device with mt, or it isn't listed in
/dev/rmt at all, I would suggest a reconfiguration reboot to have the
operating system probe for new devices. While you have it down for a
reboot, confirm that the hardware is visible in the prom monitor with
probe-scsi-all. If all of that fails, check cables and if possible try
attaching it to another machine.

--
Dr Tristram J. Scott
Energy Consultant

[Monty]

The tape device works fine with the O/S: tars backup and restore just
fine. The problem appears to be with the drive or Netbackup. I'll
repost in one of the other groups.

Thanks for your replies.

P.S. It was a 1200 MHz processor :)

I'd like a 12000 MHz processor :)