HI,

OS= RedHat 7.3

Problem as follows:

I'm trying to do multiple backups to tape device...

1st. I create a file called tape.header which contains the file markers on the tape for easy navigation. I then write tape.header :

mt -f /dev/st0 rewind
tar -cvf /dev/nst0 /tmp/tape.header

2nd. I then perform a tar backup. eg.

tar -cvf /dev/nst0 /usr /etc


Now the problem is on other OS's (eg. SCO OpenServer, AIX, RH 6.1) I can do the following once the tape is rewound:

tar -tvf /dev/nst0 <--- that will then display tape.header file
tar -tvf /dev/nst0 <--- that will then list files from /usr /etc

But with current RH versions the above does not work! after the first tar command I must then do "mt -f /dev/nst0 fsf" otherwise the next tar command fails and an extra tar command needs to be run.. It's almost like there is a black space after each tape write. FYI same thing happens if using cpio or something like PAX.

This is an issue because we are trying to port our software from UNIX (AIX, SUNOS, HPUX etc) to newer Linux versions and this one thing is driving us crazy.. Just so your aware, putting the "mt -f /dev/nst0 fsf" command is really a last resort.