Managing tape drive dump files This section describes how to manage the automatic erasure of drive dump files. IBM  Spectrum Archive automatically generates two tape drive dump files in the  /tmp  directory  when it receives unexpected sense data from a tape drive. Example 10-1 shows the format of  the dump files. The size of each drive dump file is approximately 2 MB. By managing the drive dump files that  are generated, you can save disk space and enhance IBM Spectrum Archive performance. It is not necessary to keep dump files after they are used for problem analysis. Likewise, the  files are not necessary if the problems are minor and can be ignored. A script program that is  provided with IBM Spectrum Archive EE periodically checks the number of drive dump files  and their date and time. If some of the dump files are older than two weeks or if the number of  dump files exceeds 1000 files, the script program erases them. The script file is started by using Linux  crontab  features. A  cron_ltfs_limit_dumps.sh  file is  in the  /etc/cron.daily  directory. This script file is started daily by the Linux operating  system. The interval to run the script can be changed by moving the  cron_ltfs_limit_dumps.sh  file to other  cron  folders, such as  cron.weekly . For more  information about how to change the crontab setting, see the manual for your version of  Linux. In the  cron_ltfs_limit_dumps.sh  file, the automatic drive dump erase policy is specified by  the option of the  ltfs_limit_dump.sh script  file, as shown in the following example: /opt/IBM/ltfs/bin/ltfs_limit_dumps.sh -t 14 -n 1000 You can modify the policy by editing the options in the  cron_ltfs_limit_dumps.sh  file. The  expiration date is set as a number of days by the  -t  option. In the example, a drive dump file  is erased when it is more than 14 days old. The number of files to keep is set by the  -n  option.  In our example, if the number of files exceeds 1,000, older files are erased so that the  1,000-file maximum is not exceeded. If either of the options are deleted, the dump files are  deleted by the remaining policy.  By editing these options in the  cron_ltfs_limit_dumps.sh  file, the number of days that files  are kept and the number of files that are stored can be modified. Although not recommended, you can disable the automatic erasure of drive dump files by  removing the  cron_ltfs_limit_dumps.sh  file from the  cron  folder. 276  IBM Spectrum Archive Enterprise Edition V1.2.6: Installation and Configuration Guide Example 10-1 Dump files [root@ltfs97 tmp]# ls -la *.dmp -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3681832 Apr 4 14:26 ltfs_1068000073_2013_0404_142634.dmp -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3681832 Apr 4 14:26 ltfs_1068000073_2013_0404_142634_f.dmp -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3681832 Apr 4 14:42 ltfs_1068000073_2013_0404_144212.dmp -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3697944 Apr 4 14:42 ltfs_1068000073_2013_0404_144212_f.dmp -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3697944 Apr 4 15:45 ltfs_1068000073_2013_0404_154524.dmp -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3683424 Apr 4 15:45 ltfs_1068000073_2013_0404_154524_f.dmp -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3683424 Apr 4 17:21 ltfs_1068000073_2013_0404_172124.dmp -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3721684 Apr 4 17:21 ltfs_1068000073_2013_0404_172124_f.dmp -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3721684 Apr 4 17:21 ltfs_1068000073_2013_0404_172140.dmp -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3792168 Apr 4 17:21 ltfs_1068000073_2013_0404_172140_f.dmp