Control of the Tape Server

To access the tape control system from the Main Menu click-on the button Tape Control. This will start the main Tape Drive Control window or open it if it was already running somewhere.

Ensure any drive you use has a tape inserted and is online (DLT – Tape In Use yellow led on). [Solaris takes 30 seconds to respond if an attempt is made to access a tape drive which has no online tape; Linux is much quicker but you will still get unexpected errors if you try to access tape drives which are not online]

These instructions refer to the Version 2 GUI, which is now the default.

The Version 2 GUI has been designed to give a much simpler interface to the Tape Server. However some of the more advanced options supported by the Tape Server are not accessible.

Features of the V2 GUI

• The Experiment Name is used as the volume name for tapes. This can be changed as you wish when you are in the STOPped state. Valid names are 1 => 6 alphanumeric characters starting with an alphabetic character.

• A Run Number is maintained by the server and is used to create a new file on your tapes whenever you GO. The file names are of the form Rn where n is the current run number. The Run Number can be changed as you wish within the range 1 to 99999 when you are in the STOPped state.
• Files are automatically closed when you STOP and the Run Number is incremented.
• A copy of your data is written to all drives that are Allocated and have a tape mounted.
• Options that are currently unavailable due to the state of the drive or the server are disabled.

Help and instructions on what you can or should do next are displayed in a panel in the centre of the window.

Drive Allocation

Click on the Allocated button next to each Available Drive to toggle between Yes and No. All drives for which you wish to receive a copy of your data should be allocated.

Note that for tape drives a tape should be loaded and the drive should be in the online and ready state.

Drive types are available which are mapped to disc files.

Load Tape

You can choose between Initialise (when loaded a new tape); Mount (when adding data to an existing tape) and Reinitialise (when reusing an existing tape).

In order to Reinitialise a tape which already contains data you must supply the existing tape name as a security measure. You will get the error message Invalid Tape Name if you attempt to Initialise a tape which already contains data or attempt to Reinitialise a tape but supply an incorrect existing name.

Unload Tape

Unloads the selected tape.

Blocks written

Kbytes written

Kbytes/sec

Tape written

Useful statistics about your tapes. If you are writing data to more than one drive (more than one drive is in the allocated and ready state when you GO) then this information is taken from the first In Use tape in the list.

Server State

This button permits the Tape Server state to be changed. The current state of the Tape Server is shown by the button that is depressed or golden in colour.

No Storage

This button causes all data received by the Tape Server to be discarded. It is essentially a diagnostic tool.

Redisplay

Updates the displayed information from the Tape Server.

Click on the drive name to obtain detailed information about the status of the drive.