Forum Discussion

svabonius's avatar
svabonius
Level 2
12 years ago

Unload all tape devices

Hi guys!

I'm in the process of moving from EMC Networker to Symantec Netbackup. And boy is that a bit of a travel! - A good one though :)

One thing I'm missing is a command that does the following:

  1. Eject all tape drives in a given tape library
  2. Return tapes to their slots

Is this possible, or do I have to fiddle with robtest and the sorts?

Kind regards,
Jens Rohde
Fujitsu, Denmark

7.5
Backup and Recovery
Basics
Linux
Managing Backup Devices
NetBackup
  • StefanosM's avatar
    StefanosM
    12 years ago

    The "command" that unload a drive and return the tape to the slot is the reset function of the GUI or of the vmoprcmd CLI command.

    From the GUΙ, you can select all drives -> right click and select reset.

    From the CLI you have to do it one by one, but it is very easy to write a script that resets all drives
    vmoprcmd -resetbyname drive_name

    Please note that you cannot reset a drive that it is assigned to a backup or restore operation.

     

  • StefanosM's avatar
    StefanosM
    Level 6
    12 years ago

    The "command" that unload a drive and return the tape to the slot is the reset function of the GUI or of the vmoprcmd CLI command.

    From the GUΙ, you can select all drives -> right click and select reset.

    From the CLI you have to do it one by one, but it is very easy to write a script that resets all drives
    vmoprcmd -resetbyname drive_name

    Please note that you cannot reset a drive that it is assigned to a backup or restore operation.

     

  • Marianne's avatar
    Marianne
    Level 6
    12 years ago

    In addition to above excellent post:

    reset will unload tape drive and return tape to slot.

    vmoprcmd command must be run on the media server where tape is assigned.

    On another note - NBU will automatically unload drives and return tape to slot within 3 minutes of completion of read/write operation. what would the purpose of such an exercise be?

  • svabonius's avatar
    svabonius
    Level 2
    12 years ago

    Thanks guys! - I have actually tried that without succes on some drives. But as long as I know, that this should work, I can move along and start to investigate, why it does not :)

    Regards,
    Jens

  • Nicolai's avatar
    Nicolai
    Moderator
    12 years ago

    Please be aware of Netbackup will not unload a tape drive if it's assigned.

    Use nbrbutil -dump to see any drive/tape reservations.

    http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO42484

    http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH126575

    http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO43779

    http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH46807

    Mvh Nicolai

    (også i Danmark)

  • Marianne's avatar
    Marianne
    Level 6
    12 years ago
    Another reason why unload may fail is incorrect device mapping. Best to have VERBOSE entry in vm.conf on all media servers. This will log additional info in OS system logs.