Re: automating tbtape on Informix V5

I have the tape drive capacity, 7GB, and a sequential mode library to boot. I'm told that tbtape only writes 2.2 GB. Therefore my sequenser doesn't go to the next tape since the last tape is not full. Tbtape prompts me to hit enter. Basically, if I can intercept that request, via shell, I can either advance to the next tape myself, via tctl or whatever, or write to files and then deal with them via a backup manager. The only squirelly part of the backups I see so far is tbtape. I tend to think shooting them to files, on another machine, and then backing them up via a backup manager to be pretty safe. But then so is driving 120 MPH, under the right conditions:-). It gives me tape management and a point and click method to recover, which I feel good about. Although I do share/understand what you're saying about trusting the backup method. I'm not going to implement it unless I can test/prove it works. Notwithstanding using files and an external manager, I still can't automate it going to tape and then advancing right now. Having said that though, I only need this solution for around 6-7 months, until we can get this migrated to V7.1.2 or 7.2. At that time ontape will/may support ADSM directly. At least that's what I've been promised. (They wouldn't fib to me, right?:-|) Clem Akins wrote: > > Dana Lloyd (danal@austin.ibm.com) wrote: > : I'm trying to automate the backup of an Informix > : database of around 10 GB to files. All I seem to have > : is tbtape (some external reasons involved) > > If you are looking for onarchive it is not available in > version 5. The proper utility is tbtape. > > : Right now it chokes with an error 32 and > : dd: 0511-065 Requested a write of 4096 bytes, but > : wrote on 3584. > > : Anyway, I want to be able to automatically, i.e. not > : have to hit enter etc, and be able to redirect each > : section of the backup to a different file. So far I > : don't see how to do it. Does someone have a modified > : version of tbtape or a good wrapper that would allow > : me to detect end-of-tape/file so that I can execute a > : shell script to point to another file then tell > : tbtape to carry on etc? > > Your best bet is to get a bigger tape drive. The official > "party line" from Informix is not to support squirrelly > backup solutions. There are a couple of DLT tape drives which > will support 10GB, or 20GB if you use the on-board compression. > They cost a couple of thousand dollars (cheap.) > > The unofficial "personal opinion" is that you don't want to > take chances with your archives. Automating the process is > easy and pretty safe (though not really supported; see the c.d.i. > archives for several examples) but kludging together several > files, plus the logs, sounds shaky to me. > > Be careful, > Clem > ____________________________________________________________ > | Clem Akins clema@informix.com | > | International Support formerly | > | Informix Software, Inc cwakins@leia.alloys.rmc.com| > | Menlo Park, CA Standard Disclaimers Apply | > |___________________________________________________________| -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dana Lloyd (316)663-8657 danal@austin.ibm.com AIX Solutions Engineer T/L 762-0002 DANAL AT AUSTIN IBM Austin, Texas USA AUSVM6(DANAL)