Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!munnari.oz.au!bruce!gdwb.oz.au!csb
From: csb@gdwb.oz.au (Craig Bishop)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.nfs
Subject: Re: lifeline-backup
Message-ID: <526@rome.gdwb.oz.au>
Date: 21 Oct 90 23:28:48 GMT
References: <1990Oct16.175419.10751@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> <9929@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>
Sender: news@gdwb.oz.au
Lines: 44

pilger@uhunix1.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Eric Pilger) writes:

>In article <1990Oct16.175419.10751@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> mlj8e@mljsg.pharm.Virginia.EDU (Michael Johnson) writes:
>>
>>   I have a problem with Lifeline backups with PC-NFS (sun) and

>>4D80 server.  Everything works fine if I write to a cartridge tape,
>>but fails with an LL011F error when I try to write to an Exabyte
>>8mm tape.  However, I can read the Exabyte tapes with no problem.
>>
>I ran into a problem where things would work for awhile, then fail at
>the same point each time.  The error was something like LL011F.
>I believe the problem was timing out on the write request.  When I
>switched from the failing Exabyte on a Sun 3 to an Exabytre on our Sun
>490, things worked.  Things also worked writing to a 1/4" drive on a
>Sparcstation.  There seems to be some interplay between the speed of
>the machine, the type of tape drive, and time outs. (I am guessing I
>could also have fixed the problem by increasing the timeout tperiod
>for an NFS request.)

We had the same problems which you described and we worked out a kludge
which gets us round the problem. I have sent mail to Michael Johnson
about our kludge and it worked for him also.

We have SUNs also and when we upgraded to SunOS 4.1 we struck the above
problem. It is due to Lifeline timing out but the reason it seems is
that the SunOS 4.1 kernel no longer positions that tape correctly after
a tape load or a tape rewind. The PC-lifeline will even fail in different
places (but always near the start) depending on whether the tape has just
been loaded or just rewound. We found that if we wrote a file to the
non rewinding device we could then write successfully from the PC
running PC-Lifeline.

We use PC-Lifeline to backup all our PC's (about 60) to the one exabyte
tape unit, since we have been writing this initial file from the server 
to the tape we have not had any problems. We have software running on
the server and the PC's which handles which PC gets the exabyte.

Sun are working on this problem and I believe that it has been accepted
a a bug in the SunOS 4.1 kernel (not gospel).
--
Craig Bishop			Geelong & District Water Board
Phone: +61 52 262506		61-67 Ryrie St Geelong
Fax:   +61 52 218236		Victoria 3220 Australia