Tape is write protected - why? 1

[Diblik]

Using Networker 6.1 on Solaris 2.6 with Exabyte autochanger. Every time I add the next set of tapes they all say "tape is write portected" I have checked the retention policy (1 month), every thing on the tapes is much older that one month, so that should not be the problem. What am I missing? Current work around is that I erase and relable all tapes, then it works. I have also tried to cahnge the mode to recycle but then it puts the "R" next to the volume name and makes it read only.
TIA for any suggestions!

 

[onslaw]

You should check you browse policy. If your save set is still browsable, Networker will not recycle it.

 

[x2shy]

Also check every client. I has one client that was one year instead of one month. This caused the indexs to be kept hence tape was not recycled.

 

[ddfield]

I have the same problem exactly. This now definitely looks like a bug with Networker 6.1 trying to retain save set information on tape even though it passed its browse and retention period.

 

[Chapter11]

Has anyone been diddling with the flags on your volumes?

nsrmm -yo notreadonly ${VOLUME}
nsrmm -yo notfull ${VOLUME}

 

[crawfpi]

Did anyone get any conclusion on this? I am seeing the same things with tapes that I created using NW 6.1.1 but now being read on 7.1 on a Solaris 8 platform.

Some, but not all, of the recyclable tapes are like this, i.e. marked read only also. If I try and change the mode (using nsrim) to notreadonly, then it is no longer recyclable. If I then make it recyclable again it is now read only also.

All the save sets have expired and the tape became recycled automatically. As well as the recycled save sets there are also a number of aborted save sets.

What we are doing is now relabelling the tapes.

TIA.

 

[wallace88]

I believe this is expected behavior. When a tape is recyclable, it is marked read only so than NetWorker will no longer append more data onto the tape.

The read only is cleared when the tape is relabeled, or when it is recycled.

You can test this by simply having one recyclable (and read only) tape in the jukebox and have the jukebox set wuth auto media management turned on. Then test a backup group that will use the pool that that tape belongs to.

 

[DavinaTreiber]

wallace88 is mostly correct. Another way to describe a read-only tape in NetWorker terms would be "not appendable", it may or may not be also marked as full. You can't append any more data but you can still potentially recycle it if other criteria are met.

Where wallace88 is incorrect is in the implication that auto media management is necessary for recycling of tapes that are already labelled. AMM is only necessary for automatic labelling of NEW tapes, and the normal recycling of media will take place irrespective of whether AMM is turned on.

Other respondents in this thread have mentioned other issues such as aborted save sets. This is not the answer to this question, but nevertheless may be a bug. That's another story. Also someone meantioned save sets that have passed their retention period. This is normal, since they won't become recyclable until all dependencies have also expired.

 

[crawfpi]

Thanks for the responses, but I may not have explained totally what is happening.

We have a number of recyclable tapes, of which some are marked read only, denoted with the (R) appended to the volume id and some that are not:

I current have a selection in the jukebox, so can see the difference of these recyclable volumes with:

nsrjb -v | grep yes

ackjack:/# nsrjb -v | grep yes


setting verbosity level to `1'

5: 000461(R) 28% FIS 000461 a8408107-00000005-e2ba6402-3de2ba64-00400000-86f87f46 yes
6: 000462(R) 4% FIS 000462 33f9909c-00000005-e2ba6a02-3de2ba6a-00420000-86f87f46 yes
7: 000460(R) 27% FIS 000460 66237b9c-00000005-e2ba4c02-3de2ba4c-002f0000-86f87f46 yes
8: 001099(R) 100% Default 001099 b6931b13-00000005-d5148401-3dd51484-02920000-94599046 yes
88: 001738 full Default 001738 21a0a939-00000005-d1d39e01-3dd1d39e-04410000-94599046 yes
89: 001737 full Default 001737 33612052-00000005-d1de7201-3dd1de72-04450000-94599046 yes
90: 001736 full Default 001736 8bf3566e-00000005-d1e19b01-3dd1e19b-04470000-94599046 yes
91: 001734 full Default 001734 eb600725-00000005-d5913901-3dd59139-040d0000-94599046 yes
97: 000992 full FIS 000992 13bdf02b-00000005-cc21c301-3dcc21c3-000a0000-94599046 yes
102: 001034 full FIS 001034 7933fb7c-00000005-cc21bb01-3dcc21bb-00090000-94599046 yes
108: 001030 full Default 001030 a5f5f8f5-00000005-cc1df001-3dcc1df0-00040000-94599046 yes


Those that have the (R) when mounted are shown to be write protected (though the physical write protect tab is not in place) and will be skipped over for use over though they are also marked as recyclable. Those that do not have the (R) after the volid are used automatically as expected (with AMM turned off).

If I use

nsrmm -o notreadonly <volid>

to change the mode of the volume it also looses the recyclable flag, though all save sets are recyclable. This is not I believe expected behavior.

One interesting thing about these tapes though is that they are also not full as they had to be sent offsite on a weekly basis, full or not. Changing the mode to full and then removing the read only flag also removes the recycle tab.

To get around this and avoid having to delete the volume from the media index than relabel it, I use:

nsrjb -b <pool> -S<slot> -L <volid>


Obviously re-labelling tapes like this can always incorporate some risk if the wrong slots are specified.

Thanks for any help.

 

[DavinaTreiber]

OK, a few points:

(1) Let's not even consider the write-protect tab. This can cause all sorts of problems in NetWorker, best not to use it in normal operations.

(2) The tapes with the (R) after the volume name are the ones you have specifically marked as read-only, rather than implicitly being read-only because they are full. What do you mean when you say that they will be skipped over for use? They should definitely be recycled when required, although NetWorker's algorithms may cause it to use other volumes first. The only thing that would stop them from being recycled is if the manual recycle flag is also set, this might be worth checking. I doubt very much that there is a bug here, this is core functionality that has worked correctly for years.

(3) You should not need to change the status of any of these volumes, UNLESS you have set them to manual, in which case setting them back to automatic (nsrmm -o notmanual VOL) is all you need to do. You also should not need to relabel (=recycle) them manually.

(4) Removing the read-only flag (nsrmm -o notreadonly) is the same as setting them back to appendable, which by definition makes them not recyclable. This is normal and expected behaviour, but probably not something you should want to do.

 

[605]

I am not sure what you mean in your introductional statement with
the words &quot;Every time I add the next set of tapes ..&quot;. To me it sounds
as if you add expired tapes by using the scanner command.

If so, NW marks these tapes as read-only (R). This is simple due
to precaution and it is the expected behaviour.