In D3/NT the command is: dev-make -t tape -a "Y:\filesave,p"

Can anybody tell me the equivelent for D3/aix?

Art

In D3/Linux you can use CHG-DEVICE ? to get help and changing the
parameters of a currently defined tape device. I've never needed to create
a new tape on the fly. I hope this helps.

Regards,

Dale

"Art Martz" <artmartz (AT) triad (DOT) rr.com> wrote

As Dale has said, in D3/*nix you can't create devices on the fly, but
you can cahnge the definition of existing devices from your
pick0/config -> typically those pesky floppies that are used so often
at devices 0 & 1

So, you would do something like

chg-device 1 name=/anydir/filesave type=floppy density=pseudo

Don't forget that if you are going to generate > 2Gb of data you will
need to use a COMPRESSED device (which you will NOT be able to easily
re-process under D3/NT)



Art Martz wrote:

Ross Ferris wrote:
Another source indicated that editing the pick0 record and adding the
device there was SOP for aix. I'm just surprised that's the only way to
do it.

Does the 2g limit apply to aix, or is that just an NT issue? The same
file as a DOS flat file is about 4g, if I don't break it up into
multiple tapes. How does the compressed work? Are we talking about an
aix limitation, or a D3 limitation?

Art

Art Martz wrote:
[snip]
The compressed pseudo-floppy device works by piping the job through the
unix compress command. You can set a volsz parameter that determines the
maximum uncompressed size (in KB) of pseudo-floppy file before the
output is "cascaded" to a new file with a numeric suffix, e.g. filesave,
filesave-1, filesave-2, etc.

I don't think the 2Gig limit applies to W2K or Linux (or AIX?) anymore.
However, it sure is a lot easier to use a compressed device in any case,
as it breaks a large file-save into manageable pieces (about 600MB each
if you are using volsz=2000000).

I think it is possible to restore a compressed pseudo-floppy to W2K if
you uncompress it on the unix side first.

Scott Ballinger
Pareto Corporation
Edmonds WA USA
206 713 6006

Ross Ferris wrote:
The line I've added to the pick0 record is:

tape /aixbak/filesave 500 c lx # tape 9

This file actually resides on a nfs server running on mandriva linux. I
haven't yet run a complete file-save to it to check any size
limitations. But I have done some basic account saves to check
functioning. One thing I noticed quickly is the the T-REW command does
not work as expected. It seems to work more like a T-BCK than a T-REW.
The only way to reliably get to the beginning of the file is to actually
T-DET and SET-DEVICE. Is this common behavior?

Art

Stepping into this thread with a couple useless tidbits:

About the T-REW situation: Many years ago SOP with any MV platform was
to T-REW twice. The first one just flushed the buffer and the second
one invoked the physical rewind. That situation was corrected long
ago. I'm surprised you're seeing T-REW acting like a T-BCK and I'd
check with RD Support on that.

About manipulating tape devices in general with D3: During
installation I always create around 10 devices that can be changed as
required: 1.4M floppy, abs, data, 2 for uncompressed account-saves, 2
for compressed account-saves, 2 for file-saves, and a junk device that
I can change at will. The compressed pseudos are for data that stay
in the platform, the uncompressed pseudos are for data that may be
exchanged cross-platform (NT>Linux, Linux>AIX...). It's not that any
specific device only has one purpose, I can chg-device to a different
name and density at any time, but it's nice to have a standard place
for certain kinds of data. It's a real pain on a new client system to
have to choose a device from a short list, just so that I can load or
dump data - afterward another chg-device is required to reset it and
I'm sometimes not sure I've reset the device back to what the client
needs. I think D3 *nix supports up to 127 tape devices, or maybe it's
256 now. There's no harm at all in setting pick0 to allocate a lot
more than you'll ever need so that you don't have to dance with just a
few. With D3NT it's easy, just dev-make a new device...

See? Useless...
T

Art Martz <artmartz (AT) triad (DOT) rr.com> wrote:

Tony Gravagno wrote:
chg-device to have one different file for each time the system is backed
up, with a month's worth of backups on the hard drive.

I already have my laptop running D3/NT accessing the same linux server
via Samba. It was simple on the linux server to set a link from the
samba directory to the nfs directory, and now I have the filesave file
from the aix box as an icon in "my computer" on my laptop, all courtesy
of Mandriva.

Art