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Contribs.org Forums => General Discussion => Topic started by: gbentley on April 11, 2009, 08:43:29 AM

Title: DAR Conundrum
Post by: gbentley on April 11, 2009, 08:43:29 AM
Hi All,

I have a Tandberg RDX unit with two carts. Both carts where fdisk'd [n,p,1,w] and mkfs.ext3 /dev/sda1

One of them works perfectly in unattended DAR sched.

The other reports ;

mount /media/rdx
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda1,
or too many mounted file systems

If I then putty in and mount /media/rdx I get the same message however if I repeat this immediately the drive gets mounted?

I suspect its something to do with the what happens when carts are swapped out (2nd cart not being recognised)

Im not sure how to go about diagnosing this nor resolving this and was wondering if anyone had come up against a similar situ with maybe external usb drives etc

Many thanks!

Edit: Don't know if this helps but the Tandberg unit is connected to a PCI/SATA board in the master PCI slot. All manual tests with DAR etc work great.

Title: Re: DAR Conundrum
Post by: cactus on April 11, 2009, 08:48:36 AM
The other reports ;
Always the same card or perhaps always the one that is the replacement for the first not regarding which physical card?

mount /media/rdx
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda1,
or too many mounted file systems

If I then putty in and mount /media/rdx I get the same message however if I repeat this immediately the drive gets mounted?
Are the cards unmounted before swapping them? Otherwise I suspect the mount still be opened and the system trying to reassign the mount that is still active (although) cards have been switched.

Just a wild guess.
Title: Re: DAR Conundrum
Post by: gbentley on April 11, 2009, 08:52:04 AM
Thaks  for the reply cactus. As the box is offsite and someone else is swapping carts I havent nailed it down to one cart.

I have another Tandberg setup in another sme (altho a much more modern box with onboard sata - drive on /dev/sdc) and it all works a charm without any errors (ie DAR mounts and dis-mounts the drive automagically!)
Title: Re: DAR Conundrum
Post by: gbentley on May 26, 2009, 04:25:38 PM
Yes, its just one cart - it seems there is a small delay in mounting - Ive noticed this when using mount manually. Dar gives up as however it tests for a valid target times out before the cart is mounted.

If I could introduce more delay or a second mount command if after first mount test fails then I think that would solve this.

Anyone give me a hand with that?
Title: Re: DAR Conundrum
Post by: janet on May 26, 2009, 05:27:29 PM
gbentley

Did you ever think to search & read available articles.
This could be modified to suit your requirements ie
run a cron job to mount the drive just before the time the dar backup is set to run

http://wiki.contribs.org/Backup_with_dar
Title: Re: DAR Conundrum
Post by: gbentley on May 26, 2009, 05:34:29 PM
Dar already mounts the drive - well, for one cartridge anway. For some reason the other cartridge seems to take a little bit longer to initialise therefore some kind of test / delay / mount would be required - a customisation that goes beyond what I could find.
Title: Re: DAR Conundrum
Post by: janet on May 27, 2009, 08:07:25 AM
gbentley

Quote
For some reason the other cartridge seems to take a little bit longer to initialise therefore some kind of test / delay / mount would be required

By mounting the drive with a cron job before dar does, then any initialisation delays have finished well before dar starts the actual backup. Isn't that what you asked for ?
Title: Re: DAR Conundrum
Post by: gbentley on May 27, 2009, 08:17:31 AM
Hi Mary,

I obvioulsy need to study the dar scripts in depth but assume that if dar finds the drive already mounted it will throw up similar complaints?
Title: Re: DAR Conundrum
Post by: janet on May 27, 2009, 08:50:36 AM
gbentley

Quote
I ... assume that if dar finds the drive already mounted it will throw up similar complaints?

I assumed the opposite, but that's for you to test and find out.
Title: Re: DAR Conundrum
Post by: gbentley on May 27, 2009, 08:57:55 AM
I know - part of the issue is that I am not that familiar with shell scripting or the inner workings of dar - hence asking for help. Thanks for your replies and I'll take your suggestions on board. If I can figure out how to make a short script that will try and mount the cartridge, wait, then test and redo if test=0 - then unmount it afterwards that hsould work. I am not sure why its only one of the carts as these are just ruggedised laptop discs.
Title: Re: DAR Conundrum
Post by: janet on May 27, 2009, 12:18:02 PM
gbentley

Quote
If I can figure out how to make a short script that will try and mount the cartridge, wait, then test and redo if test=0 - then unmount it afterwards that hsould work.

The link posted before answers your question.
Title: Re: DAR Conundrum
Post by: gbentley on June 12, 2009, 08:14:38 AM
I created a crontab custom template to runs a short script before dar kicks in.

There are just two mount + dismount cmd pairs, the first one always fails, the second always succeeds, therefore I didnt bother trying to find out how to test for an existing mount or put any extra error detection or 'if' statements etc.

One day maybe .... on a cold winter night !