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UNIX Checking Tape Space

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Operating Systems Solaris UNIX Checking Tape Space
# 8  
Old 11-21-2013
Okay, that tells me a lot. Smilie Your "ubackups" program is probably a custom script, but it just uses tar to write to the tape...

Scan to the end of the tape with
Code:
tar tvf /dev/rmt/0n

0n is the same tape device but non-rewinding: It leaves the tape where it finished when tar is done. This lets you do mt -f /dev/rmt/0n tell to tell you the current position of the tape (probably in blocks of 512, not bytes, though other blockisizes are possible) and figure out exactly how much has been stored on it.

Then you can mt -f /dev/rmt/0n rewind to rewind the tape.
This User Gave Thanks to Corona688 For This Post:
daddy.torres
# 9  
Old 11-21-2013
Sweet! Thank you so much! On my way to try it now.
# 10  
Old 11-21-2013
The 'tvf' options just list a tar's contents, by the way. tar has accumulated a lot of cruft over the years but in the end it does just a few basic things:

Code:
# Create a tar archive.  Your backup application probably does this.
tar cf /path/to/archive list of files and directories to include
# Append to an existing tar archive.  Your backup application might do this.
tar rf /path/to/archive list of files and directories to include
# Extract a tar archive or part of a tar archive.
tar xf /path/to/archive [optional list of files to extract]
# List the contents of a tar archive without extracting them.
tar tvf /path/to/archive

'archive' can mean either file or tape -- tar uses them the same way.

The 'v' in tvf stands for verbose, which means 'print more information' -- 'xvf' would print filenames as it goes when 'xf' would not. It might be redundant for 't' but doesn't hurt either.
Last edited by Corona688; 11-21-2013 at 04:18 PM..
# 11  
Old 11-21-2013
The /dev/rmt/0 rewinds the tape after the operation.
Your previous backup is overwritten.
But it is easy to restore.
/dev/rmt/0n device enables you to append another backup file.
But in order to restore a certain file you need to use the mt commands
Code:
mt -f /dev/rmt/0n tell
mt -f /dev/rmt/0n fsf 1 # advance to the next file
mt -f /dev/rmt/0n bsf 1 # go backwards to the previous file
mt -f /dev/rmt/0n rewind # rewind to the beginning

# 12  
Old 11-21-2013
Again that depends on what his backup application is doing. It might be using these commands already.
# 13  
Old 11-21-2013
When I use tar tvf /dev/rmt/0n, I can see all the backups I have done. I have about six backups in a tape that I use only for Fridays. If you remember, I mentioned earlier that I use one tape for each day of the week.

However, when I attempted to input mt -f /dev/rmt/0n tell, my system did not recognize the command. Am I using the wrong syntax or is it possible that not all Unix machines have the same abilities as others?
# 14  
Old 11-21-2013
All UNIX is indeed not identical but mt ought to be available for Solaris... I was reading a Solaris manual page to figure out instructions for it. A few possibilities:

1) Maybe it's not in your PATH. 'whereis mt' or 'whence mt' may give you an absolute path to it, and then you can run it like /absolute/path/to/mt

2) It might not be installed.
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