Re: Installation Help - tape backup

[Bob McClure Jr <robertmcclure earthlink net>]

On Tue, Oct 01, 2002 at 07:56:47AM -0600, Mugleston, Brad wrote:
> I was given a "NEW" old Colorado Memory Systems JUMBO 350 tape backup that
> attaches to the floppy controller.  I plugged it in last night and now what?
> If I put a tape in it does the tension thing it's suppose to do but using
> what instructions I can find using tar it acts as if the drive doesn't have
> a tape in it or the drive isn't there (I've gotten both types of responses).
> 
> 
> So, what does one have to do to get the system (RedHat 7.2) to recognize
> this drive?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Brad

Support for it ((z)ftape) is part of the kernel.
Add this line to your /etc/modules.conf:

alias char-major-27 zftape

Then watch /var/log/messages while you try to run something like

mt -f /dev/nftape retension

You may want to set the environment variable TAPE=/dev/nftape.  Then
you won't have to specify the "-f /dev/nftape" for mt.
Also you will probably want to make /dev/nqft0 world writable:

 chmod 666 /dev/nqft0

(nftape is a symlink to nqft0.)

Hope that helps.

Cheers,
-- 
Bob McClure, Jr.             Bobcat Open Systems, Inc.
robertmcclure earthlink net  http://www.cumbytel.com/~bobcatos/
Linux: because I want to get there today.  Without rebooting.