amlabel - label an AMANDA tape

All AMANDA tapes must be pre-labeled before they are used. AMANDA verifies the label in amdump and amflush before writing to make sure the proper tape is loaded.

Amlabel writes an AMANDA label on the tape in the device specified by the amanda.conf file in /usr/local/etc/amanda/config. Label may be any string that does not contain whitespace and that matches the amanda.conf labelstr regular expression option. It is up to the system administrator to define a naming convention.

Amlabel appends the new tape to the tapelist file so it will be used by AMANDA before it reuses any other tapes. When you amlabel multiple tapes, they will be used in the order you amlabel them.

Amlabel will not write the label if the tape contains an active AMANDA tape or if the label specified is on an active tape. The -f (force) flag bypasses these verifications.

An optional slot may be specified after the tape label. If a tape changer is in use, amlabel will label the tape in the specified slot instead of the currently loaded tape.

See the amanda(8) man page for more details about AMANDA.

Write an AMANDA label with the string "DMP000" on the tape loaded in the device named in the tapedev option in /usr/local/etc/amanda/daily/amanda.conf:

% amlabel daily DMP000

Label the tape in slot 3 of the currently configured tape changer with the string "DMP003":

% amlabel daily DMP003 slot 3

label label doesn't match labelstr str

Label label on the command line does not match the labelstr regular expression str from amanda.conf.

label label already on a tape

Label label is already listed as an active AMANDA tape.

no tpchanger specified in path , so slot command invalid

The command line has the slot parameter but the amanda.conf file in path does not have a tape changer configured.

reading label label, tape is in another amanda configuration

This tape appears to be a valid AMANDA tape, but label does not match labelstr for this configuration so it is probably part of a different AMANDA configuration.

reading label label, tape is active

Tape label appears to already be part of this AMANDA configuration and active, i.e. has valid data on it.

no label found, are you sure tape is non-rewinding?

While checking that the label was written correctly, amlabel got an error that might be caused by mis-configuring AMANDA with a rewinding tape device name instead of a non-rewinding device name for tape.

James da Silva, <jds@amanda.org>: Original text

Stefan G. Weichinger, <sgw@amanda.org>, maintainer of the AMANDA-documentation: XML-conversion

amanda(8) amdump(8) amflush(8)