SUMMARY: StorEdge L-280 How-to

THANKS TO:  Osama Ahmed, Ric Anderson, Julie Baumler, Mark Cain, Neal
Curran, Tim Evans, Joe Fletcher, Eric P. Forgette, Rob McCauley, Peter
Stokes
 
ORIGINAL QUESTION:  I've just acquired a Sun StorEdge L-280 Autoloader Tape
Drive which I plan to use on my E450. I've currently been using a DLT7000
(single drive). I plan on continuing to use ufsdump to backup my volumes.
Does anyone have any examples or scripts on how to backup and manipulate the
autoloader using ufsdump? This is my first experience with such a device,
and I'm not sure how to make it behave. 
 
SUMMARY:  The simple answer seems to be that if the job is bigger than one
tape, use the -l (the lower-case letter L, not the number 1) switch when
using ufsdump to tell ufsdump to pause and wait while the autoloader is
switching tapes.  The autoloader should be in "stacker" mode.  
 
The command 'mt -f /dev/rmt/1 offline' forces the autoloader into switching
tapes.  Not much else can be used with mt to manipulate the robotics.
 
Amanda and Solstice Backup were also suggested, as they have the ability to
deal with autoloaders.
 
Ric suggested and provided me with scripts to use STCTL to control the
robotics of the autoloader.   Another option presented was to use MTX to
control the robotics.  I found a document at
http://membres.lycos.fr/boismart/L280_configuration.html
<http://membres.lycos.fr/boismart/L280_configuration.html>  to use MTX and
sst.  (Side note, does anyone have a source for the SCSI driver sst?  I
can't seem to find it on the Arkeia site.)  
 
While I didn't mention that I did have the correct SCSI controller card
installed (SUN part X6541A), thanks to those who pointed out that it was
required (and expensive).
 
Sorry for the belated summary.  I had a large number of responses which took
some time to compile and sift through.
 
Regards,
 
Christian
 
 
Christian P. Campbell
Systems Engineer
Information Technology Department - Systems
Bruegger's Enterprises
Desk:  (802) 652-9270
Cell:  (802) 734-5023
Email:  ccampbell@brueggers.com <mailto:ccampbell@brueggers.com> 
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