LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Alan Kennington <akenning@topology.org>
  To  : LinuxSA <linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au>
  Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2001 23:57:00 +0930

Re: Multiple dumps to one tape

On Mon, Jun 25, 2001 at 10:27:14PM +0930, Richard Sharpe wrote:
> Richard Russell wrote:
> 
> >                     What man page would contain info on what all the tape
> > device letters mean? If anyone happens to knwo the same info for solaris,
> > and whether this differs from linux distro to linux distro or not, that
> > would also be handy...
> 
> Ahhh, that is the difficult part ... A quick search did not reveal 
> anything. It is one of those secrets of UNIX that only those in the 
> know, know :-)


Here's a quote from ye olde solaris "man st" manual:

=======================================================
       The  driver  can  be  opened  with  either rewind on close
       (/dev/rst*) or no rewind on close (/dev/nrst*) options.  A
       maximum of four tape formats per device are supported (see
       FILES below).  The tape  format  is  specified  using  the
       device  name.   The  four rewind on close formats for st0,
       for example, are  /dev/rst0,  /dev/rst8,  /dev/rst16,  and
       /dev/rst24. 
=======================================================

Here's a quote from the ancient and venerable mtio.4 manual:

=======================================================
   Close Operation
       Magnetic  tapes  are  rewound when closed, except when the
       "no-rewind" devices have been specified.  The names of no-
       rewind  device  files use the letter n as the beginning of
       the final component.  The no-rewind version  of  /dev/rmt0
       is /dev/nrmt0.     
======================================================

Hmmm. Even the linux "man st" has the complete info
on non-rewind notation.
See that!

======================================================
FILES
       /dev/st*  : the auto-rewind SCSI tape devices
       /dev/nst* : the non-rewind SCSI tape devices  
======================================================

Cheers,
Alan Kennington.

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