Unix mt command

Under UNIX, magnetic tape drives are given individual numbers, starting from zero. Tape drives are accessed by means of a device special file which is located in the /dev  directory. These device special files appear to the user as normal files, which can be opened, read from and written to. All operations that you would do on a normal file can be done on a special file. The only difference is that the data in the file resides on the tape loaded in the drive, not on the filesystem. In addition, because there are different ways of physically writing data to a tape (e.g. low/high density), there are several different files that correspond to the same tape drive.

Each variant of UNIX has its own names for the tape drives. We will limit ourselves to linux

Tape devices under linux have different names depending on the type of tape involved. The most common sort of tape (SCSI Tape) will have a device name of  'st'.
So for example the first scsi tape will have the following device special files

/dev/st0  - normal rewinding scsi device /dev/nst0  - non-rewinding scsi tape device

Floppy tape drives (e.g. iomega ditto, Travan tapes and other QIC  Format tape drives) will be called ;

/dev/rft0  - normal rewinding floppy tape device.

/dev/nrft0  - non-rewinding floppy tape device.

One major difference between Linux and Digital UNIX devices is that the density code is not used on linux. If you want to write a tape with a density other than the default (usually highest) density then you may need to use the mt  command with the densities or setdensities  arguments to set the density of the device.  Read operations usually do not need the density setting explicitly, as this will be automatically picked up.

Manipulating tapes: the "mt" command

  mt [-f tape_device] command [count]

rewind  Rewinds a tape. status  Prints out information about a tape. offline  Unloads a tape. fsf  Forward Skip File. bsf  Back Skip File. Some of these commands can take an argument, e.g.

mssly1~> mt -f /dev/nrmt0h fsf 2

 The drive name is optional, if you are accessing the first tape drive (mt0). For all other drives the drive name must be explicitly specified on the command line. This is good practice even if you are using the default drive.
 

Rewind tape drive:

# mt -f /dev/st0 rewind

Find out what block you are at with mt command:# mt -f /dev/st0 tell

Display list of files on tape drive:# tar -tzf /dev/st0

Restore /www directory:

# cd /# mt -f /dev/st0 rewind
# tar -xzf /dev/st0 www

Unload the tape:

# mt -f /dev/st0 offline

Display status information about the tape unit:

# mt -f /dev/st0 status

Erase the tape:

# mt -f /dev/st0 erase

You can go BACKWARD or FORWARD on tape with mt command itself:
(a) Go to end of data:# mt -f /dev/nst0 eod(b) Goto previous record:# mt -f /dev/nst0 bsfm 1(c) Forward record:# mt -f /dev/nst0 fsf 1 Replace /dev/st0 with your actual tape drive name.

Full list of options

fsf

Forward space count files. The tape is positioned on the first block of the next file.

fsfm

Forward space count files. The tape is positioned on the last block of the previous file.

bsf

Backward space count files. The tape is positioned on the last block of the previous file.

bsfm

Backward space count files. The tape is positioned on the first block of the next file.

asf

The tape is positioned at the beginning of the count file. Positioning is done by first rewinding the tape and then spacing forward over count filemarks.

fsr

Forward space count records.

bsr

Backward space count records.

fss

(SCSI tapes) Forward space count setmarks.

bss

(SCSI tapes) Backward space count setmarks.

eod, seod

Space to end of valid data. Used on streamer tape drives to append data to the logical and of tape.

rewind

Rewind the tape.

offline, rewoffl, eject

Rewind the tape and, if applicable, unload the tape.

retension

Rewind the tape, then wind it to the end of the reel, then rewind it again.

weof, eof

Write count EOF marks at current position.

wset

(SCSI tapes) Write count setmarks at current position (only SCSI tape).

erase

Erase the tape.

status

Print status information about the tape unit. (If the density code is "no translation" in the status output, this does not affect working of the tape drive.)

seek

(SCSI tapes) Seek to the count block on the tape. This operation is available on some Tandberg and Wangtek streamers and some SCSI-2 tape drives. The block address should be obtained from a tell call earlier.

tell

(SCSI tapes) Tell the current block on tape. This operation is available on some Tandberg and Wangtek streamers and some SCSI-2 tape drives.

setpartition

(SCSI tapes) Switch to the partition determined by count. The default data partition of the tape is numbered zero. Switching partition is available only if enabled for the device, the device supports multiple partitions, and the tape is formatted with multiple partitions.

partseek

(SCSI tapes) The tape position is set to block count in the partition given by the argument after count. The default partition is zero.

mkpartition

(SCSI tapes) Format the tape with one (count is zero) or two partitions (count gives the size of the second partition in megabytes). The tape drive must be able to format partitioned tapes with initiator-specified partition size and partition support must be enabled for the drive.

load

(SCSI tapes) Send the load command to the tape drive. The drives usually load the tape when a new cartridge is inserted. The argument count can usually be omitted. Some HP changers load tape n if the count 10000 + n is given (a special funtion in the Linux st driver).

lock

(SCSI tapes) Lock the tape drive door.

unlock

(SCSI tapes) Unlock the tape drive door.

setblk

(SCSI tapes) Set the block size of the drive to count bytes per record.

setdensity

(SCSI tapes) Set the tape density code to count. The proper codes to use with each drive should be looked up from the drive documentation.

densities

(SCSI tapes) Write explanation of some common density codes to standard output.

drvbuffer

(SCSI tapes) Set the tape drive buffer code to number. The proper value for unbuffered operation is zero and "normal" buffered operation one. The meanings of other values can be found in the drive documentation or, in case of a SCSI-2 drive, from the SCSI-2 standard.

compression

(SCSI tapes) The compression within the drive can be switched on or off using the MTCOMPRESSION ioctl. Note that this method is not supported by all drives implementing compression. For instance, the Exabyte 8 mm drives use density codes to select compression.

stoptions

(SCSI tapes) Set the driver options bits for the device to the defined values. Allowed only for the superuser. The bits can be set either by oring the option bits from the file /usr/include/linux/mtio.h to count, or by using the following keywords (as many keywords can be used on the same line as necessary, unambiguous abbreviations allowed):

 

buffer-writes

buffered writes enabled

async-writes

asynchronous writes enabled

read-ahead

read-ahead for fixed block size

debug

debugging (if compiled into driver)

two-fms

write two filemarks when file closed

fast-eod

space directly to eod (and lose file number)

no-wait

don't wait until rewind, etc. complete

auto-lock

automatically lock/unlock drive door

def-writes

the block size and density are for writes

can-bsr

drive can space backwards well

no-blklimits

drive doesn't support read block limits

can-partitions

drive can handle partitioned tapes

scsi2logical

seek and tell use SCSI-2 logical block addresses instead of device dependent addresses

sysv

enable the System V semantics

stsetoptions

(SCSI tapes) Set selected driver options bits. The methods to specify the bits to set are given above in description of stoptions. Allowed only for the superuser.

stclearoptions

(SCSI tapes) Clear selected driver option bits. The methods to specify the bits to clear are given above in description of stoptions. Allowed only for the superuser.

stwrthreshold

(SCSI tapes) The write threshold for the tape device is set to count kilobytes. The value must be smaller than or equal to the driver buffer size. Allowed only for the superuser.

defblksize

(SCSI tapes) Set the default block size of the device to count bytes. The value -1 disables the default block size. The block size set by setblk overrides the default until a new tape is inserted. Allowed only for the superuser.

defdensity

(SCSI tapes) Set the default density code. The value -1 disables the default density. The density set by setdensity overrides the default until a new tape is inserted. Allowed only for the superuser.

defdrvbuffer

(SCSI tapes) Set the default drive buffer code. The value -1 disables the default drive buffer code. The drive buffer code set by drvbuffer overrides the default until a new tape is inserted. Allowed only for the superuser.

defcompression

(SCSI tapes) Set the default compression state. The value -1 disables the default compression. The compression state set by compression overrides the default until a new tape is inserted. Allowed only for the superuser.

sttimeout

sets the normal timeout for the device. The value is given in seconds. Allowed only for the superuser.

stlongtimeout

sets the long timeout for the device. The value is given in seconds. Allowed only for the superuser.

stsetcln

set the cleaning request interpretation parameters.

mt exits with a status of 0 if the operation succeeded, 1 if the operation or device name given was invalid, or 2 if the operation failed.

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