From stephan.ebelt@net-linx.com Fri Apr  7 21:01:24 2006
From: Stephan Ebelt <stephan.ebelt@net-linx.com>
Subject: [Bacula-devel] DVD + packet writing + UDF

Hello,

is anyone using this approach in production?

I do for about a week now. And it appears to be easier to setup and is,
in fact, quite media independent. (I actually gave up on trying the
growisofs/dvd-handler method - bacula constantly rejected most of my
media...)

Here is how it works for me (all done with bacula 1.38.5 on FC4 with the
udftools package installed):

1. load udf file system support (modprobe udf)

2. create a packet writing device on top of the dvd drive (pktsetup
   dvd-writer /dev/hdc)

3. format a blank media with UDF file system (mkudffs --media-type=dvd
   /dev/pktcdvd/dvd-writer), I tried with DVD-RAM, DVD+RW and CD-RW
   media. All appear to work fine - at different speeds of course.

4. mount the freshly formatted media (mount -t udf
   /dev/pktcdvd/dvd-writer /mnt/dvd-writer -o noatime). Note that
   'noatime' makes the media living longer.

5. configure the SD as it would write to hard disk:

    Device {
      Name       = DVD-Writer
      Media Type = DVD

      ArchiveDevice  = /mnt/dvd-writer

      LabelMedia     = no      # I want only one Volume per DVD
      AutomaticMount = yes
      RemovableMedia = yes
      AlwaysOpen     = no
    }

Now the whole thing can be automated further: steps 1, 2 and 5 are
one-time system setup.

Step 3 would require some logic to determine whether a media really is
blank. I guess something the like is already in dvd-handler?.

Step 4 should be automatic with 1.39.5+ (with the RequiresMount,
MountPoint, MountCommand... etc... options being more general). I havn't
tried this yet.

I do not know how stable this is yet. I am a bit concerned because I
read in a older mail (from Nicolas Boichat, end of 2004) that he
considered packet-writing/UDF as not reliable enough at that time.

However, the few restores I tried were all successful. Also I can read
the DVDs on at least one other computer. Maybe the UDF and pkcdvd code
matured in the meantime? I'll leave it running here and keep on testing...

best regards,
Stephan



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