Topic: HP Autoloader

[Ed Form]

Has anyone managed to get an HP1557 autoloader working under SME?

I have one [actually it's a C5677C] which is seen by the SCSI bios and appears in the dmesg's but doesn't work with TapeWare or FlexBackup. A mt command reports it powered off or no tape loaded.

There was a small amount of correspondence on the same kind of problem about 5 months back which ended witht eh suggestion that lun support had to be compiled into the kernel but no one took up the help call on that idea.

The readme file with the drive says that a line of the type...

    append= "max_scsi_luns=2"

should be added at the end of lilo.conf but that produces an error about repeated appends because the file already contains the line...

   append="hdc=ide-scsi"

I tried the line...

  append="hdc=ide-scsi max_scsi_luns=3"

which compiled alright and my SCSI CDROM still works, so I hoped it might have done the trick but not a squeak.

Anyone got any advice to offer before I put the machine in a Windows workstation and backup across the network?

Ed Form

[rob fantini]

Using redhat 8.0 and other distributions, i've had to make a custom kernel to use our autoloader.

see
 http://pcunix.com/Linux/linuxautoload.html

 Have you made a custom kernel before?

[Ed Form]

rob fantini wrote:

> Using redhat 8.0 and other distributions, i've had to make a
> custom kernel to use our autoloader.
>
> see
>  http://pcunix.com/Linux/linuxautoload.html
>
>  Have you made a custom kernel before?

Yes but not on SME. I remember advice in the forums on how to do it and where to get the kernel sources, so I'll have a look. Thanks!

I installed the machine in a workstation and it works fine, although 3hours+ for 11.7gigs seemed a bit excessive, but with TCP/IP transporting most of the data there isn't much that can be done about it. What has piqued me, however, is the impenetrable stupidity of the software interfaces in the standard backup products and the total absence of a step by step howto in their instructions. I have bought and paid for copies of Veritas BE and Tapeware, and their so-called manuals might as well be written in Chinese. It really brings home what a valuable resource these forums are in terms of freely available experienced advice!

Ed Form

[rob fantini]

for tape backups take a look at Microlite's  BackupEdge.... their docs , instructions and examples cut the learning curve down.

gigabit nics for a seperate network could help. for our main and backup servers i have 2 of gigabit nics + a patch cable..   you could use a large ide drive on a different computer and rsync to backup your sme system.   are you familiar with rsync?   I also use rsync to backup our main data to offsite computers. the great thing about rsync is that is sends just the changed parts of a file..

[Johan]

Hello Ed and Rob,

I think Ed had made the right solution to backup the server from a standard workstation. But I should use on our SME server the special client for linux from Veritas BE. this pease of software speed de transfer of data and he can backup the hole server whit it (not only the standard of primary and Ibays).

A few weeks ago here was a discussion of use of it (how to install the client).

Good luck

Johan

PS. Im ussing here also Veritas BE (entrerprice version) whith a DDS4 autoloader on a WS I'm pulling 150 to 200 MB pro/minut to the tape over the netwerk cards

On the Cd are a few documents of every pice of software but not a step by step tot install the software incl the special client's