Tape drive

michaelk · 01-25-2006, 07:59 PM

Just in case you had not figured it out yet a tape drive can not be mounted. It is used just like a sequential file.

Have you found a suitable backup application yet?

The correct syntax is
modprobe st buffer_kbs=128 (not buffers_kbs) (Cardy had a typo in the second post)

JSLayton · 01-25-2006, 08:42 PM

That's what I needed to know. Thanks.

After adding the modprobe st line to the rc.modules file and rebooting, how would I refer to the tape drive in a tar command? For instance, how would I write the entire /home directory to the tape?

MS3FGX · 01-25-2006, 08:51 PM

Going from memory, it would be:

tar cvf /dev/st0 /home

To restore, you would do:

tar xvf /dev/st0

Pretty straight forward, really.

Other than that, there are other commands to erase the tape, rewind it, and eject it. Probably want to put everything into a script.

michaelk · 01-25-2006, 09:18 PM

Futhermore using,
/dev/st0 will rewind the drive upon completion of an action.
/dev/nst0 will not rewind the tape.

http://www.linuxlinks.com/Software/Backup/index.shtml

JSLayton · 01-25-2006, 09:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MS3FGX

Going from memory, it would be:

tar cvf /dev/st0 /home

To restore, you would do:

tar xvf /dev/st0

Pretty straight forward, really.

Other than that, there are other commands to erase the tape, rewind it, and eject it. Probably want to put everything into a script.

Great!

Where would I find a listing of these commands to use for a tape?

michaelk · 01-25-2006, 09:49 PM

The mt utility command controls the tape drive.
http://www.die.net/doc/linux/man/man1/mt.1.html

JSLayton · 01-26-2006, 02:03 PM

It's correctly setting the buffer now, but I'm getting two errors on boot after showing that the modprobe st command worked

Code:

st: Can't allocate new tape buffer (nbr 0).
st: Unable to allocate new static buffer.

Any ideas?

tuantq · 02-24-2006, 06:05 AM

Hi, i am a newbie,i want to know what command show when tape is full, and the capacity of the tape, the capacity free of the tape, so can u help?