cartis - Administration of the cartridge numbers.

cartis <number>

cartis -i <ins-cart> <ins-file> [-S <cartset>]

The first form of this command is used to give the backup server a hint, which cartridge number is currently placed inside the streamer. If the tape has a valid afbackup label, then it is not necessary to tell the server, what tape is in the drive, cause it will try to read and evaluate it. If the tape is not labeled (e.g. if it has not been used before), the server has no chance to find out the number and must maintain it's own information about it. The server will automatically label new tapes, if they don't already have a valid label, the next time, a write operation is attempted on the tape. By issuing cartis after inserting an unlabeled tape you tell the server, what tape it should become. If you are not initially starting with cartridge number 1 and an unlabeled tape, you have to enter this command at least one time.

The second form instructs the server to write the next backup data stream to cartridge number <ins-cart>, starting at file number <ins-file>. This is useful, if for some reason you want to take out the cartridge which is currently inside the drive and continue on a different tape or at the beginning of the tape you have put in instead. Note, that it usually causes problems, if you try to write at a tape position, that is not at the end of the last file, that has been written to tape. So set the <ins-file> number only to a value different from 1, if you really know, that this is the end of the used tape area. In other words, if n files are on tape, set <ins-file> to n+1. So if you don't know n, you're better off starting to write at the beginning of a new tape entering the appropriate cartis-command. To find out, what the server is thinking, which cartridge is currently inside the drive, you can give the command afclient -q on any client. If the value, that is printed out, does not reflect the reality, you have to inform the backup server about this fact via this command entering both forms of this command. The first form with the real cartridge number and the second one with the next cartridge number and a 1 as file number. Then the next backup goes to the next cartridge. You may also set the next backup writing position to the current file number on the correct cartridge. To find out, where the server side intents to write the next backup, enter the command afclient -Q on any client.

It makes sense to check the consistency from time to time, if the backup server has the right idea of the current cartridge.

-S <cartset>

The cartridge set to use, where <cartset> is the number of a valid cartridge set on the server side. Default is 1

/var/lib/afbackup

Some internal state information of the server.

/var/log/afbackup

The directory for logging the server actions.

afclientconfig(8), xafclientconfig(8), full_backup(8), incr_backup(8), afverify(8), afrestore(8), xafrestore(8), update_indexes(8), copy_tape(8), afclient.conf(8), afserver(8), afmserver(8), afserver.conf(8), tar(1)

afbackup was written by Albert Fluegel (af@muc.de). This manpage was extracted from the text docs by Christian Meder (meder@isr.uni-stuttgart.de).