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mt(1) User Commands mt(1) NAME mt - magnetic tape control SYNOPSIS mt [-f tapename] command... [count] DESCRIPTION The mt utility sends commands to a magnetic tape drive. If -f tapename is not specified, the environment variable TAPE is used. If TAPE does not exist, mt uses the device /dev/rmt/0n. OPTIONS The following option is supported: -f tapename Specifies the raw tape device. OPERANDS The following operands are supported: count The number of times that the requested operation is to be performed. By default, mt performs command once. Multiple operations of command may be performed by specifying count. command Available commands that can be sent to a magnetic tape drive. Only as many characters as are required to uniquely identify a command need be specified. eof Writes count EOF marks at the current weof position on the tape. fsf Forward spaces over count EOF marks. The tape is positioned on the first block of the file. fsr Forward spaces count records. bsf Back spaces over count EOF marks. The tape is positioned on the beginning-of- tape side of the EOF mark. bsr Back spaces count records. nbsf Back spaces count files. The tape is positioned on the first block of the file. This is equivalent to count+1 bsf's followed by one fsf. asf Specifies absolute space to count file number. This is equivalent to a rewind followed by a fsf count. If count is specified with any of the following com- mands, the count is ignored and the command is per- formed only once. eom Spaces to the end of recorded media on the tape. This is useful for appending files onto previously written tapes. rewind Rewinds the tape. offline Rewinds the tape and, if appropriate, rewoffl takes the drive unit off-line by un- loading the tape. status Prints status information about the tape unit. retension Rewinds the cartridge tape completely, then winds it forward to the end of the reel and back to beginning-of-tape to smooth out tape tension. reserve Allows the tape drive to remain re- served after closing the device. The drive must then be explicitly released. release Re-establishes the default behavior of releasing at close. forcereserve Breaks the reservation of the tape drive held by another host and then re- serves the tape drive. This command can be executed only with super-user privi- leges. erase Erases the entire tape. Caution: Some tape drives have option settings where only portions of the tape may be erased. Be sure to select the correct setting to erase the whole tape. Eras- ing a tape may take a long time depend- ing on the device and/or tape. Refer to the device specific manual for time de- tails. config Reads the drives current configuration from the driver and displays it in st.conf format. See st(7D) for defini- tion of fields and there meanings. EXIT STATUS 0 All operations were successful. 1 Command was unrecognized or mt was unable to open the speci- fied tape drive. 2 An operation failed. FILES /dev/rmt/* magnetic tape interface ATTRIBUTES See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes: +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ | ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ |Availability |SUNWcsu | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ SEE ALSO tar(1), tcopy(1), ar.h(3HEAD), environ(4), attributes(5), mtio( 7I), st(7D) BUGS Not all devices support all options. Some options are hardware-depen- dent. Refer to the corresponding device manual page. mt is architecture sensitive. Heterogeneous operation (that is, SPARC to x86 or the reverse) is not supported. SunOS 5.10 1 Sep 2004 mt(1)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | OPERANDS | EXIT STATUS | FILES | ATTRIBUTES | SEE ALSO | BUGS
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