[SunHELP] ufsdump verification errors

[Sheldon T. Hall]

Edward Chase writes ...

> Happy New Year!

... and the same to you, yours, and the bank's.
 
> Friday, I attempted to backup 2 systems to tape using 
> ufsdump.  (We normally
> use IBM Tivoli.)  I had the machine down at "init s" and I 
> kept running into
> problems during the ufsdump verification.  I even tried it on 
> an unmounted
> filesystem.
> 
> ufsdump 0cvf /dev/rmt/0 /array1
> and
> ufsdump 0cvf /dev/rmt/0 /dev/md/dsk/d30
> 
> Would the verification errors simply be due to bad tape(s)? 

One tape, maybe.  DLT is very reliable, in my experience, so I'd think that
if you had more than one failure, it's not the tapes.  It might be the
drive, cable, termination, etc.

Is it failing on a file that might have changed, even in single-user mode?
 
> If so, is there
> way of checking tapes in advance of waiting for backups to fail?

I think you're doing it.  Write a tape with contents you can check, then
check the contents ...

There's probably a real testing program, maybe from the hardware
manufacturer, but I've never looked for it.

-Shel