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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.
- eom
- Position the tape to end of data (end of media
if tape is full).
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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