UNIX Desktop Questions & Answers

I'm having trouble trying to extract files from a bru tape. The man pages on the bru command have confused me. The following are commands that I've tried and the respective outputs.


will.rlee 224> bru -vgf /dev/nrtape
label:
created: Mon Nov 7 18:21:41 1994
device: freedom:/dev/mt/tps0d6
user: root
group: sys
system: IRIX glovebox 4.0.5F 08280217 IP12
bru: "SGI Release 4.0.5D"
release: 9.11
variant: 1


will.rlee 226> bru -evtf /dev/nrtape
e 26k of 28k [1] ./kj
e 2k of 30k [1] ./GB1.bru
bru: 1 volume(s), 2 files, 16 archive blocks, 32 Kbytes
bru: warning - missing archive header block; starting at volume 1
bru: c => continue q => quit r => reload s => fork shell [default: q] >> q


What else could I try?

Please DO NOT CROSS POST!!!!

Your other post was in the right location - namely "Filesystems, Disks and Memory", which can be found here:

https://www.unix.com/filesystems-disks-and-memory/10371-bru-command.html?s=

Perhaps this should be addressed by the 'Simple Rules'

https://www.unix.com/unix-for-beginners-questions-and-answers/2971-simple-rules-unix-com-forums.html?s=

I doubt there are many IRIX or bru folks hitting this site, so I went searching. Found a man page for bru and read through it.

To extract what is on the tape, you would use the -x option.
To inspect the archive on the tape (before extracting it) you would use the -i option. I would also suggest you use the -vv option with it to show info from the header block.

To step through this, try the following

$ bru -ivvf /dev/nrtape

This will check that your archive is good. It's possible that it isn't (from the information you already posted) - a tape that is almost 10 years old may not be in pristine condition.

From this point on I'm assuming the tape is okay...
Next, see what is on the tape - this is important if you don't want to overwrite information already on disk.

$ bru -tvf /dev/nrtape

This will list everything on the tape. If the output looks something like this...

./mydir/myfile
./mydir/myotherfile

then you can get ready to extract the archive into a newly created directory or any directory you want.

If the output looks something like this...

/mydir/myfile
/mydir/myotherfile

then the archive will possibly overwrite files on your system. You should know if you are willing to do that.

Once you verify the information, a generic extract could be done.

$ cd /where_I_want_extract
$ bru -xvf /dev/nrtape

Thanks. I can properly list the files and my output looks something like this:

/mydir/myfile
/mydir/myotherfile

meaning that I might overwrite some of the files on my system.

When I type bru -xvf /dev/nrtape, however, I get a "Permission denied" error for each of the files that I want to extract. Why is this?

I never heard of bru, but it sounds a bit like tar.

To extract those files, you need to write them to disk. Do you have permission to do that?

Does /mydir exist? If not, you will need to do the equivalent of "mkdir /mydir". That requires write permission to /. Usually only root could do that.

If /mydir exists, can you write to it? You need to create files in it and that means write permission to /mydir.

Or if those files already exist, can you write to them?

I do have permission to write files to disk. I still don't understand why I get "Permission denied" when I try to extract the bru files using the command "bru -xvf /dev/nrtape"