pcvlado ~ > vmgrmodifytape -V I40044 -d 10TC
vmgrmodifytape I40044: There are physical files on the tape. Please reclaim the tape before modifying the density or the label.
This check should be maintained in CTA as well.
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The capacity value has now been moved away from each individual tape to media type.
Currently it is possible to change it on the fly, which will affect all tapes of that type:
[root@eosctafst0109 ~]# cta-admin tape ls -v I42402 vid media type vendor library tapepool vo encryption key name capacity occupancy last fseq full from castor state state reason label drive label time last w drive last w time w mounts last r drive last r time r mounts c.user c.host c.time m.user m.host m.time commentI42402 3592JC7T IBM IBM455 validation IT-ST-TAB - 7.0T 10.5T 51037 true true ACTIVE Imported from CASTOR CASTOR 1970-01-01 01:00 tpsrv002 2021-01-09 10:56 11 tpsrv003 2021-02-02 08:52 81 CASTOR CASTOR 2021-03-05 15:44 CASTOR CASTOR 2021-03-05 15:44 Imported from CASTOR[root@eosctafst0109 ~]# cta-admin mediatype ls | grep 3592JC7T 3592JC7T 3592JC 7000000000000 84 0 0 0 0 mdavis ctadevmichael.cern.ch 2021-03-05 14:17 vlado eosctafst0109.cern.ch 2021-03-10 14:30 IBM 3592JC cartridge formated at 7 TB[root@eosctafst0109 ~]# cta-admin mediatype ch --capacity 8000000000000 -n 3592JC7T[root@eosctafst0109 ~]# cta-admin mediatype ls | grep 3592JC7T 3592JC7T 3592JC 8000000000000 84 0 0 0 0 mdavis ctadevmichael.cern.ch 2021-03-05 14:17 vlado eosctafst0109.cern.ch 2021-03-10 14:33 IBM 3592JC cartridge formated at 7 TB[root@eosctafst0109 ~]# cta-admin tape ls -v I42402 vid media type vendor library tapepool vo encryption key name capacity occupancy last fseq full from castor state state reason label drive label time last w drive last w time w mounts last r drive last r time r mounts c.user c.host c.time m.user m.host m.time commentI42402 3592JC7T IBM IBM455 validation IT-ST-TAB - 8.0T 10.5T 51037 true true ACTIVE Imported from CASTOR CASTOR 1970-01-01 01:00 tpsrv002 2021-01-09 10:56 11 tpsrv003 2021-02-02 08:52 81 CASTOR CASTOR 2021-03-05 15:44 CASTOR CASTOR 2021-03-05 15:44 Imported from CASTOR
To be discussed if we keep it like this or if we add any sort of protection to avoid any typos or other errors if there are tapes attached to a media type.
Is there a use case for changing metadata attached to a media type? What if we just remove the cta-admin mediatype ch command? (In case of a mistake creating media types you could just remove and re-add it.)
Documentation of MEDIA_TYPE table is here with more details in issue CTA#794.
CARTRIDGE is just a text label, for operator convenience. It can be changed.
CAPACITY should never be changed, as changing the capacity of an existing cartridge has undefined behaviour.
Density codes are detailed in CTA#794 but it's not clear if/how these are used in the code. In any case, they are defined in the SCSI manual and should not be changeable.
NUMBER_OF_WRAPS, MIN_LPOS, MAX_LPOS are estimated values used by the software RAO algorithm. In principle it's possible to come up with a better estimate and change these values. I will leave them as changeable.
Why we have PRIMARY_DENSITY_CODE and SECONDARY_DENSITY_CODE columns in the MEDIA_TYPE tables of the CTA catalogue:
In the future we planned to have automatic support for the "asymmetric tape drive problem". We want a tape server to ask a tape drive what tape densities it supports and then use that knowledge to only schedule compatible tapes or even schedule a restricted set of compatible tapes. The word "asymmetric" comes from the fact that different tape drive models can work with different types of tapes.
Having the SCSI codes in the catalogue database allows CTA to translate the responses from the tape drives into something human beings can understand.
For cta-admin mediatype ch, the --capacity option should be removed
For cta-admin tape ch, the --mediatype option is only allowed if there are no files on the tape. If the tape contains any files, this option should return an error.