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mt - magnetic tape positioning and control
mt [ -f tapedevice ] command [ count ]
mt is used to position or control the specified magnetic
tape drive supporting the commands listed below. Commands
which support a count field allow multiple operations to be
performed (the rewind, status and offline commands do not
support a count field). mt will output failure messages if
the specified tape drive cannot be opened or if the operation
fails.
The -f option specifies which tape device to use. Use sysconfig
-t to list all tape devices on the filer.
- eof, weof
- Write count end-of-filemarks beginning at the
current position on tape.
- fsf
- Forward space over count filemarks. The tape is
positioned on the end-of-tape side of the filemark.
- bsf
- Backward space over count filemarks. The tape
is positioned on the beginning-of-tape side of
the filemark.
- fsr
- Forward space count records. The tape is positioned
on the end-of-tape side of the
record(s).
- bsr
- Backward space count records. The tape is
positioned on the beginning-of-tape side of the
record(s).
- erase
- Erase the tape beginning at the current tape
position. When the erase completes, the tape
will be positioned to beginning-of-tape.
- rewind
- Rewind the tape, positioning the tape to
beginning-of-tape.
- status
- Display status information about the tape unit.
- offline
- Rewind tape and unload tape media.
- diag
- Enable or disable display of diagnostic messages
from tape driver. Enabling diagnostic
messages can be helpful when attempting to
diagnose a problem with a tape device. Specifying
a count of "1" enables display of diagnostic
messages, a count of "0" disables diagnostic
messages. Diagnostic messages are dis_abled
by default.
The following example uses mt to display status information
for the no rewind tape device, unit zero, highest format
(density):
toaster> mt -f nrst0a status
Tape drive: Exabyte 8505 8mm
Status: ready, write enabled
Format: EXB-8500C (w/compression)
fileno = 0 blockno = 0 resid = 0
To skip over a previously created dump file to append a dump
onto a no rewind tape device, use the fsf (forward space
file) command:
toaster> mt -f nrst0a fsf 1
na_sysconfig(1), na_tape(4)
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