mt(1) [bsd man page]

MT(1)							      General Commands Manual							     MT(1)

NAME

       mt - magnetic tape manipulating program

SYNOPSIS

       mt [ -f tapename ] command [ count ]

DESCRIPTION

       Mt  is  used  to  give commands to a magnetic tape drive.  If a tape name is not specified, the environment variable TAPE is used;  if TAPE
       does not exist, mt uses the device /dev/rmt12.  Note that tapename must reference a raw (not block) tape device.  By  default  mt  performs
       the requested operation once.  Operations may be performed multiple times by specifying count.

       The available commands are listed below.  Only as many characters as are required to uniquely identify a command need be specified.

       eof, weof
	      Write count end-of-file marks at the current position on the tape.

       fsf    Forward space count files.

       fsr    Forward space count records.

       bsf    Back space count files.

       bsr    Back space count records.

       rewind Rewind the tape (Count is ignored).

       offline, rewoffl
	      Rewind the tape and place the tape unit off-line (Count is ignored).

       status Print status information about the tape unit.

       cacheon
	      Enable the readahead/writebehind cache on the tape unit.

       cacheoff
	      Turn off the readahead/writebehind cache on the tape unit.

       Mt returns a 0 exit status when the operation(s) were successful, 1 if the command was unrecognized, and 2 if an operation failed.

       The cacheon and cacheoff commands currently only apply to the TMSCP driver and then only for certain drives such as the TU81+.  No error is
       produced by the TMSCP driver if the cache commands are used.  Other drivers will return an error code  since  they  do  not  recognize  the
       MTCACHE and MTNOCACHE functions codes.  See mtio(4).

FILES

       /dev/rmt* Raw magnetic tape interface

SEE ALSO

       mtio(4), tmscp(4), dd(1), ioctl(2), environ(7)

4th Berkeley Distribution					 December 22, 1995							     MT(1)

MT(1)							      General Commands Manual							     MT(1)

NAME

       mt - control magnetic tape drive operation

SYNOPSIS

       mt [-V] [-f device] [--file=device] [--rsh-command=command] [--version] operation [count]

DESCRIPTION

       This  manual page documents the GNU version of mt.  mt performs the given operation, which must be one of the tape operations listed below,
       on a tape drive.

       The default tape device to operate on is taken from the file /usr/include/sys/mtio.h when mt is compiled.  It can be overridden by giving a
       device file name in the environment variable TAPE or by a command line option (see below), which also overrides the environment variable.

       The  device  must  be either a character special file or a remote tape drive.  To use a tape drive on another machine as the archive, use a
       filename that starts with `HOSTNAME:'.  The hostname can be preceded by a username and an `@' to access the remote tape drive as that user,
       if you have permission to do so (typically an entry in that user's `~/.rhosts' file).

       The available operations are listed below.  Unique abbreviations are accepted.  Not all operations are available on all systems, or work on
       all types of tape drives.  Some operations optionally take a repeat count, which can be given after the operation name and defaults to 1.

       eof, weof
	      Write count EOF marks at current position.

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

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

       fsr    Forward space count records.

       bsr    Backward space count records.

       bsfm   Backward space count file marks.	The tape is positioned on the beginning-of-the-tape side of the file mark.

       fsfm   Forward space count file marks.  The tape is positioned on the beginning-of-the-tape side of the file mark.

       asf    Absolute space to file number count.  Equivalent to rewind followed by fsf count.

       seek   Seek to block number count.

       eom    Space to the end of the recorded media on the tape (for appending files onto tapes).

       rewind Rewind the tape.

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

       status Print status information about the tape unit.

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

       erase  Erase the tape.

       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.

   OPTIONS
       -f, --file=device
	      Use device as the file name of the tape drive to operate on.  To use a tape drive on another machine, use  a  filename  that  starts
	      with  `HOSTNAME:'.   The hostname can be preceded by a username and an `@' to access the remote tape drive as that user, if you have
	      permission to do so (typically an entry in that user's `~/.rhosts' file).

       --rsh-command=command
	      Notifies mt that it should use command to communicate with remote devices instead of /usr/bin/ssh or /usr/bin/rsh.

       -V, --version
	      Print the version number of mt.

REPORTING BUGS

       Report cpio bugs to bug-cpio@gnu.org

       GNU cpio home page: <http://www.gnu.org/software/cpio/>

       General help using GNU software: <http://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>

       Report cpio translation bugs to <http://translationproject.org/team/>

																	     MT(1)