amtape - user interface to AMANDA tape changer controls

Amtape performs tape changer control operations. It uses the underlying tape changer script defined by the tpchanger option for a particular AMANDA configuration as specified by the config argument.

Tape changers maintain a notion of the current and next slot for each configuration. These may or may not correspond to an actual physical state of the device, but do tend to minimize searching through the tape storage slots. If the desired tape is in the current slot, it is likely the next tape needed is in the next slot rather than at some random position in the storage slots.

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

reset

Reset the tape changer to a known state. The current slot is set to the first slot. Other device-specific side effects may occur. Some gravity stackers need to be reset to the top position by hand. This command notifies AMANDA the stacker is back in that position.

eject

If a tape is loaded in the drive, it is ejected and returned to the slot from which it was loaded.

clean

If a cleaning tape is defined for the changer, it is used to clean the drive.

show

Show the contents of all slots. This can be slow.

label label

Search for and load the AMANDA tape with label label.

taper

Perform the taper scan algorithm. Load the next tape in the configuration's tape sequence, or a fresh tape with a suitable label.

device

Display the name of the current tape device on stdout.

current

Display the current slot.

update

Update the changer label database, if it has one, to match the tapes now available.

slot slot

Eject any tape in the drive and put it away, then load the tape from slot slot and reset current.

slot current

Eject any tape in the drive and put it away, then load the tape from the current slot.

slot prev

Eject any tape in the drive and put it away, then load the tape from the previous slot and reset current.

slot next

Eject any tape in the drive and put it away, then load the tape from the next slot and reset current.

slot first

Eject any tape in the drive and put it away, then load the tape from the first slot and reset current.

slot last

Eject any tape in the drive and put it away, then load the tape from the last slot and reset current.

slot advance

Eject any tape in the drive and put it away. Advance current to the next tape, but do not load it.

This is useful with non-gravity stackers to unload the last tape used and set up AMANDA for the next run. If you just use eject, the current tape will be mounted again in the next run, where it will be rejected as being still in use, ejected and the next tape requested. Using slot next followed by eject does an unnecessary mount.

Note: most changers optimize the slot commands to not eject the loaded tape if it is the one being requested.

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

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

amanda(8)