Getting AMANDA setup - issues with labeling

Question

Im attempting to setup AMANDA to use a TL4000 system with 3 drives and 45 slots. I've run into a few issues that have me stymied:

1. amlabel seems to work about half the time. The rest I get messages like Error reading volume label: Tape device /dev/nst0 is not ready or is empty. Often rerunning the command will get a success.

2. When I run amcheck daily I get errors like this:

   ERROR: server.edu /var: data-path is AMANDA but device do not support it
   ERROR: server.edu /etc: data-path is AMANDA but device do not support it

3. (related to label issue) The amcheck also gives me errors like this:

   slot ?: Slot 34, label 'backup-008', mismatch barcode between changer '000001L6' and tapelist file '000008L6'
   ERROR: Slot 34, label 'backup-008', mismatch barcode between changer '000001L6' and tapelist file '000008L6'

Somewhere there is a file of settings that is trying to tie the specific tape to a changer location but I can't find it. I know this is doable as I'm attempting to retire a 10 year old tape system that has used AMANDA all along. 400 tapes into 40 slots. It's been too long since this was configured to find the clues.

Suggestions on what I'm missing here?

Answer 1

Turns out that my definitions in 'changer.conf' were a bit confused. There are three drives in this unit and the numbering for /dev/nstX created during the iscsiadm run wasn't truly sequential.

To debug this: use a combination of mtx -f /dev/sgX load SLOT DRIVE# and then mt -f /dev/nstX status to see which actual drive your tape ended up in.

This is the file I ended up with:

define changer DELL-TL4000-ROBOT {
    tapedev "chg-robot:/dev/sg3"
    property "tape-device" "0=tape:/dev/nst1"
    property append "tape-device" "1=tape:/dev/nst2"
    property append "tape-device" "2=tape:/dev/nst0"
    property "use-slots" "1-44"
    device-property "BLOCK_SIZE" "512k"
    device_property "LEOM" "TRUE"
}