Tape Drive

Rick Stevens rstevens at vitalstream.com
Mon Dec 27 18:21:18 UTC 2004


karlp at ourldsfamily.com wrote:
>>Thanks, so the tape drive is /dev/st0?  Searching old emails I
>>found a command "mt -f /dev/st0 status" but it doesn't do what it
>>was suppose todo so if it's not st0 then how do I find out where
>>it is?
> 
> 
> It's probably st0. It might be sct, but I only see st0, etc. in /dev of my
> RH9 system. On some SVR4 Unixes, the drive names are so convoluted it's
> almost impossible to figure out. One sure method I've used to find a
> device name is to unplug it, reboot and see what's missing from /dev or
> what comes back on reboot after plugging it back in. Yes, I'm a bit
> anal...
> 
> Of course, the easier way is to insert a tape, then do:
> 
> find /boot -print |cpio -ovcdumB > /dev/st0
> 
> and see if the light on the tape drive flashes, flickers or whatever it does.

You can also check the output of "dmesg" and see what the system saw it
as.  On occasion, they're also known as "/dev/mt0".

> 
> Karl
> 
> 
>>Thanks
>>
>>Brad
>>
>>On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 karlp at ourldsfamily.com wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>I'm running RH9 and have a tape drive in my machine.  For the
>>>>life of me I can't remember or find the instructions for using
>>>>mounting or doing anything with a tape drive.
>>>
>>>You don't need to mount tape drives as you would other media. You
>>>redirect
>>>output to them. A common commandline method of backing up would be to
>>>use
>>>dump, tar or a find command piped to cpio.
>>>
>>>You can man dump and tar to see that syntax. I've always used something
>>>like this (your mileage may vary):
>>>
>>>find . -print |cpio -ovcdumB > /dev/st0
>>>
>>>Where '.' represents the current directory.
>>>
>>>If you want to use this method of backing up, I can help you with
>>>restores, which are different depending on your backup syntax. You can
>>>use
>>>different path syntax, but restoring has to match.
>>>
>>>There is a curses-based backup utility which I used on RH6.4 and 7.0,
>>>but
>>>can't remember it's name to save my life and searching the /usr/bin
>>>directory of my RH9 system has proven fruitless for the impatient person
>>>on my keyboard...
>>>
>>>Have fun, but remember, disk is cheap, so I just NFS mount and do
>>>backups
>>>to a large disk just for this purpose on a remote machine (not real
>>>remote; same building, different rooms, same floor).
>>>
>>>
>>>>HELP!!!
>>>
>>>Hope this does..?
>>>
>>>
>>>>OH, and Merry Christmas.
>>>
>>>Same to you, but more of it. (I learned that way back in my primary
>>>school
>>>days; it's meant as a compliment).
>>>
>>>Karl
>>>
>>>
>>>>--
>>>>Brad Mugleston, KI0OT
>>>>
>>>>There are 10 types of people in this world.  Those that
>>>>understand binary and those that don't.
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>--
>>Brad Mugleston, KI0OT
>>
>>There are 10 types of people in this world.  Those that
>>understand binary and those that don't.
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>Redhat-install-list mailing list
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>>
> 
> 
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-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-      Do you know how to save five drowning lawyers?  No?  GOOD!    -
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