08-03-2011
A solution which I have used in 1980's backup solutions before there were much better commercial solutions.
Append archives on a tape by using the "no rewind" device. Make your first archive a simple text file containing the identity of the archive. Append your second and subsequent archives to the tape one-by-one with the "no rewind" device. Use the unix "mt" command to navigate the tape partitions. Read the first tape partition to check that you can access the the tape and that it is the correct tape.
Personally I would never use "tar" for any serious backup (but it has a use for cross-platform file copies).
If you don't have "large files" the unix "dump" and "restore" programs are what you should use if you don't have a proper commercial backup solution. These commands append backups of disc partitions to tape and allow restore of a whole partition or individual files. You can still have the first partition containing a simple text file to identify the tape.
To answer your original question you could use the unix "dd" command to read the first few blocks off the tape. The unix "head" command (on a tape device not the output from a "tar" archive contents list) is totally irrelevant because this is a tape device is not a text file.
Last edited by methyl; 08-03-2011 at 07:35 PM..
Reason: Assorted typos
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LEARN ABOUT DEBIAN
read_tape
READ_TAPE(8) AFS Command Reference READ_TAPE(8)
NAME
read_tape - Reads volume dumps from a backup tape to a file
SYNOPSIS
read_tape -tape <tape device>
-restore <# of volumes to restore>
-skip <# of volumes to skip>
-file <filename> [-scan] [-noask] [-label]
[-vheaders] [-verbose] [-help]
DESCRIPTION
read_tape reads an OpenAFS backup tape and prompts for each dump file to save. This command does not require any OpenAFS infrastructure.
This command does not need an OpenAFS client or server to be available, which is not the case with the backup(8) command.
The dump files will be named for the Read/Write name of the volume restored. After saving each dump file, vos restore or restorevol can be
used to restore the volume into AFS and non-AFS space respectively.
read_tape reads the tape while skipping the specified number of volumes. After that, it restores the specified number of volumes.
read_tape doesn't rewind the tape so that it may be used multiple times in succession.
OPTIONS
-tape <tape device>
Specifies the tape device from which to restore.
-restore <# of volumes to restore>
Specifies the number of volumes to restore from tape.
-skip <# of volumes to skip>
Specifies the number of volumes to skip before starting the restore.
-file <filename>
Specifies an alternate name for the restored volume dump file rather than the default of the volume name.
-scan
Scans the tape.
-noask
Doesn't prompt for each volume.
-label
Displays the full dump label.
-vheaders
Displays the full volume headers.
-verbose
Produces on the standard output stream a detailed trace of the command's execution. If this argument is omitted, only warnings and
error messages appear.
-help
Prints the online help for this command. All other valid options are ignored.
EXAMPLES
The following command will read the third through fifth volumes from the tape device /dev/tape without prompting:
% read_tape -tape /dev/tape -skip 2 -restore 3 -noask
PRIVILEGE REQUIRED
The issuer must have access to read and write to the specified tape device.
SEE ALSO
backup(8), restorevol(1), vos_restore(1)
COPYRIGHT
Copyright 2007 Jason Edgecombe <jason@rampaginggeek.com>
This documentation is covered by the BSD License as written in the doc/LICENSE file. This man page was written by Jason Edgecombe for
OpenAFS.
OpenAFS 2012-03-26 READ_TAPE(8)