Sun Solaris/DLT4 - Backup tape issue

[isen]

Dear All,

I am getting the following messages during the backup process. It is Sun Solaris server, and DLT4 external tape driver attached to take care of the backups. Backup process was working with no issues and has started giving the message '/dev/rmt/0hn: No such device or address'.. There has not been any modification/or change to the system.

Below is an extact from backup logs.

========================================
Archiving index file to tape...
tar: /dev/rmt/0hn: No such device or address
Dumping device /dev/dsk/c0t9d0s0 to tape...
DUMP: Writing 32 Kilobyte records
DUMP: Date of this level 0 dump: Wed Nov 12 00:00:29 2003
DUMP: Date of last level 0 dump: the epoch
DUMP: Dumping /dev/rdsk/c0t9d0s0 (server-so-01:/data) to /dev/rmt/0hn.
DUMP: Mapping (Pass I) [regular files]
DUMP: Mapping (Pass II) [directories]
DUMP: Estimated 15285752 blocks (7463.75MB).
DUMP: NEEDS ATTENTION: Cannot open `server-so-01:/dev/rmt/0hn'. Do you
want to retry the open?: ("yes" or "no&quot DUMP: The ENTIRE dump is aborted.
Dumping device /dev/dsk/c0t9d0s1 to tape...

=========================================

I have also noticed the following entries in /var/adm/messages..

========================================
Oct 25 00:02:50 scsi: [ID 107833 kern.warning] WARNING: /pci
@1f,4000/scsi@3,1/st@5,0 (st12):
Oct 25 00:02:50 Error for Command: write
Error Level: Fatal
Oct 25 00:02:50 scsi: [ID 107833 kern.notice] Requested
Block: 23349 Error Block: 23349
Oct 25 00:02:50 scsi: [ID 107833 kern.notice] Vendor: QU
ANTUM Serial Number: INI
Oct 25 00:02:50 scsi: [ID 107833 kern.notice] Sense Key:
Hardware Error
Oct 25 00:02:50 scsi: [ID 107833 kern.notice] ASC: 0x15
(<vendor unique code 0x15>), ASCQ: 0x1, FRU: 0x0



Your comments and suggestions will be greatly appreciated..

Thanks and regards,

Isil

 

[ptwork]

I would probably start by trying the following command, with the tape drive closed and a tape in the drive:
mt -f /dev/rmt/0hn stat
You should get something like this back
Vendor 'EXABYTE ' Product 'EXB8500C8CQANXR' tape drive:
sense key(0x6)= Unit Attention residual= 0 retries= 0
file no= 0 block no= 0

If you do, that is a good thing. You might try using mt to move the tape forward and backwards a bit, and observe the behavior.

If you don't see the above, but rather drive off line, no such file or something, you may have to investigate further. Somethings to try is to actually go into the /dev/rmt directory and do a long listing, see if the device handle is actually pointing to the correct device. Even when &quot;nothing changes&quot; sometimes, if you have multiple tape drives, a reboot can cause 1 to become 0, and such.

Can't tell from your snip if the error message is related to the drive or not. If so, Quantuum should have something, probably online, to tell you what the codes mean. Most of the time, the recommendation is clean the drive and try again.