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Full Discussion: validate tar file on tape
Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting validate tar file on tape Post 302544437 by methyl on Wednesday 3rd of August 2011 06:22:31 PM
Old 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 REDHAT

amverify

AMVERIFY(8)						      System Manager's Manual						       AMVERIFY(8)

NAME

       amverify - check an Amanda tape for errors

SYNOPSIS

       amverify config [ slot [ runtapes ] ]

DESCRIPTION

       Amverify  reads	an  Amanda  format  tape  and makes sure each backup image can be processed by amrestore and, if possible, the appropriate
       restore program (e.g. tar).

       Amverify runs amrestore on each file of the tape and pipes the output to a restore program (if available) with an option to create a  cata-
       logue of the backup.  The catalogue itself is discarded.  Only the success or failure of the operation itself is reported.

       If  the	backup image cannot be processed by the restore program, e.g. if it was written on a different operating system, the image is sent
       through dd to /dev/null.  This still determines if the tape is readable, but does not do any internal consistency check on the image.

       If config is set up to use a tape changer, the slot argument may be used to choose the first tape to process.  Otherwise, the current  slot
       is used.

       The runtapes configuration parameter determines how many tapes are processed unless it is specified on the command line.

       See the amanda(8) man page for more details about Amanda.

AUTHOR

       Axel Zinser <fifi@icem.de>

SEE ALSO

       amrestore(8), amanda(8), amverifyrun(8)

																       AMVERIFY(8)
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