Problem writing to a tape drive

phatboyz · 06-03-2005, 11:58 AM

I know how to tar things and I can run tar and mt to feed direcly to the tape, but by backups make incrementals and I need to be able to copy them to a tape. Don't worryt about tape popsition as I know how to contol that but I can not cp a file to it like this
cp backup_main_060605.tar.gz

How do you manually write a file to a tape?

michaelk · 06-03-2005, 12:28 PM

Here is one method:
dd if=/location/backup-yada.tar.gz of=/dev/nst0 (or st0 if you want to rewind the tape)

phatboyz · 06-03-2005, 01:31 PM

I just found out that I could you cat > and that will do it.

phatboyz · 06-03-2005, 02:38 PM

I am getting this error when ever I try and write to the tape. Does anyone know why?

cat 2005-06- 01_full.tar.gz > /dev/nst0
cat: write error: Invalid argument

michaelk · 06-03-2005, 03:26 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by phatboyz
I am getting this error when ever I try and write to the tape. Does anyone know why?

cat 2005-06- 01_full.tar.gz > /dev/nst0
cat: write error: Invalid argument

Is the space between - and 0 a typo?

phatboyz · 06-03-2005, 03:41 PM

Just a typo. I check the histroy and i ran the command right I am sure. Also my DDS4 drive in my windows2000 server makes the writing noises while running backups ands this DDS3 drive the light come on but thats about it.

Being that I can mount and umount and erase and rewind I would have assumed that I installed the drive properly mt status says its online.

phatboyz · 06-06-2005, 07:13 AM

Its here...

dmesg | grep st0
Attached scsi tape st0 at scsi0, channel 0, id 6, lun 0
st0: try direct i/o: yes (alignment 512 B), max page reachable by HBA 1048575
st0: Block limits 1 - 16777215 bytes.
st0: Write not multiple of tape block size.
st0: Write not multiple of tape block size.
st0: Write not multiple of tape block size.
st0: Write not multiple of tape block size.

ls -l /dev/st0
crw-rw---- 1 root disk 9, 0 May 31 04:17 /dev/st0

michaelk · 06-06-2005, 07:21 PM

Try using the dd command and see what happens.
dd if=/location/backup-yada.tar.gz of=/dev/nst0 bs=512 (or /dev/st0 for rewind)

The bs=512 writes using 512B blocks which the cat command does not according to the above error.

maveric7911 · 07-07-2005, 01:36 PM

Ok some how I am having the same issue at the same exact spot as he is. Here is the reply to your last command you issued ..

# dd if=file.tar.bz2 of=/dev/nst0 bs=512
dd: writing `/dev/nst0': Invalid argument
1+0 records in
0+0 records out

Same results when using st as well.

maveric7911 · 07-08-2005, 10:08 AM

any ideas?