How To:Restore from Virtual Tapes

Recovering files from vtapes works just like recovering files from any other device. See How To:Recover Data.

Loading tapes manually (ancient, probably only useful for CentOS users)

Instead of letting amrecover use the changer, you can also do everything manually.

I will simply paste an amrecover session here (provided by JC Simonetti, author of chg-disk):

# /usr/local/amanda/sbin/amrecover woo
AMRECOVER Version 2.4.4p3. Contacting server on backupserver.local ... 
220 backupserver AMANDA index server (2.4.4p3) ready.
200 Access OK
Setting restore date to today (2004-10-08)
200 Working date set to 2004-10-08.
Scanning /BACKUP2/holding...
Scanning /BACKUP/holding...
200 Config set to woo.
200 Dump host set to backupserver.local.
Trying disk /tmp ...
$CWD '/tmp/RECOVER' is on disk '/tmp' mounted at '/tmp'.
200 Disk set to /tmp.
Invalid directory - /tmp/RECOVER
amrecover> sethost backupserver.local
200 Dump host set to backupserver.local.
amrecover> setdisk /
200 Disk set to /.
amrecover> cd /etc
/etc
amrecover> add passwd
Added /etc/passwd
amrecover> list
TAPE B3_14 LEVEL 0 DATE 2004-09-26
       /etc/passwd
amrecover> extract

Extracting files using tape drive file:/BACKUP2/slots/ on host
backupserver.local. The following tapes are needed: B3_14

Restoring files into directory /tmp/RECOVER
Continue [?/Y/n]? Y

Extracting files using tape drive file:/BACKUP2/slots/ on host
backupserver.local. 
Load tape B3_14 now
Continue [?/Y/n/s/t]? Y
. /etc/passwd
amrecover> quit
200 Good bye.  

Nothing spectacular? The trick is this: When Amanda asks you

Load tape B3_14 now 
Continue [?/Y/n/s/t]?  

you have to run the following in a second terminal:

$ amtape woo slot 14
amtape: changed to slot 14 on file:/BACKUP2/slots/ 

This step is necessary to load the proper tape into your virtual changer. Let me express this in a more general way:

When amrecover prompts for the tape it needs to restore the files you requested, you have to "load" the tape it requests. The recommended way to do this is to use amtape. The options that make sense in this context are:

# amtape
Usage: amtape <conf> <command>
       Valid commands are:
               [...]
               slot <slot #>        load tape from slot <slot #>
               [...]
               label <label>        find and load labeled tape
               [...] 

If you know which slot contains the requested tape (for example, if you have tape daily01 in slot 1, tape daily02 in slot 2, and so on) you may use the first option. If you just know the label of the tape you need, use the second option.

To continue the upper example:

amtape woo slot 14 	        # option 1 OR
amtape woo label B3_14 	# option 2 

amtape will return something like:

amtape: label B3_14 is now loaded.  

After this you can return to your amrecover-session and continue restoring your files.

Credit

Based on text by Stefan G. Weichinger, November - December, 2003, with updates in April, 2005.