HI Buck
I've had to do this at some stage in the past. I've looked at the notes I
made at the time, hopefully they help. In my case there were a backups
provided by a client that used *MOUNTED as the VOL Parameter and they did
not want to change the logic of the backup to insert specific volume
names, they wanted this done magically by an external program. I've also
used the approach to let the library pick the volume.
In order to allow the tape library to load specific tape volumes, the tape
library needs to be in RANDOM mode and operated via a Media Library (MLB)
device rather than a standalone tape device (DEV). This operates somewhat
differently to a standalone tape drive in that individual tapes (referred
to as cartridges) are assigned to categories (CHGTAPCTG), and the library
is set to use a category (SETTAPCGY). The MLB device must be varied on and
the drive allocated - the individual devices will need to be varied off to
allow this.
If the volume names are known, the required volume name can be specified
instead of *MOUNTED - this will obviously fail if the cartridge is not in
the library.
Volumes will need to be assigned to the appropriate category via the
ADDTAPCTG command:
ADDTAPCTG DEV(TAPMLB01) CTG(VOL001) CGY(BACKUP) CHKVOL(*NO)
I used the DSPTAPCTG to display all catridges in the library to an outfile,
and then looped through them to assign them a category and initialise them
if necessary. I would generally assign all tapes to the category IDLE so
they had a category assigned.
Prior to the backup I would identify the tape required and assign it to the
BACKUP category (or two tapes if more than one volume was required). I had
a process that had some logic to work out which tapes to cycle through and
assign based on the clients backup rotation and available volumes.
CHGTAPCTG DEV(TAPMLB01) CTG(COL001) CGY(BACKUP *CURRENT)
When a tape operation specifies *MOUNTED as the volume name, the library
attempts to locate and use media from the category that has been set for
the library. To set the Category for the library:
SETTAPCGY DEV(TAPMLB01) OPTION(*ASSIGN) CGY(BACKUP)
Once the category has been set on the library it will use tapes assigned to
that category for tape operations where *MOUNTED is specified as the VOL.
In summary, the process was:
Assign tapes to a category, in my case case I used IDLE for all tapes in
the library.
Assign a category to the library to be used for backup operation, in my
case I used category BACKUP.
Assign the individual tapes to be used to the BACKUP Category
Run the backup(s) with *MOUNTED specified and the library would mount the
cartridges as required
If a category has been assigned to a Media Library Device, it must be
de-assigned in order to allow the device to be varied off (for instance you
want to use the standalone device for some reason)
Use commad: SETTAPCGY DEVICE(TAPMLB01) OPTION(*DEMOUNTED) . De-mounting the
category also causes the current tape to be unloaded.
There was a bit more to it as I used variables to softcode quite a bit, but
in a nutshell that is the outline of what I did.
On Sat, Nov 23, 2024 at 6:38 AM Buck Calabro <kc2hiz@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I'm looking at revising our homegrown backup process. We have a TS2900
LTO7 autoloader/drive. The web GUI works great for moving a tape to and
from the magazine and drive. I'd like to do the same thing in a program.
I looked at the APIs for tape, and while I can use QTARTLBL to get the
volume ID of the tape in the drive, I don't see a way to move tapes from
the magazine to the drive. I know that BRMS does it, but I can't find
the appropriate API.
My budget is $0.00 and whatever time I can find while eating lunch at my
desk. BRMS is not an option.
Thanks!
--
--buck
http://wiki.midrange.com
Your updates make it better!
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