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29 .\" @(#)mt.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
37 .Nd magnetic tape manipulating program
50 utility is used to command a magnetic tape drive for operations
51 other than reading or writing data.
59 environment variable described below.
61 The available commands are listed below.
63 characters as are required to uniquely identify a command
66 The following commands optionally take a
69 .Bl -tag -width ".Cm erase"
73 end-of-file (EOF) marks at the current position.
77 setmarks at the current position (DDS drives only).
89 setmarks (DDS drives only).
101 setmarks (DDS drives only).
103 Erase the tape using a long (often very long) method.
106 of 0, it will erase the tape using a quick method.
107 Operation is not guaranteed if the tape is not at its beginning.
108 The tape will be at its beginning upon completion.
111 The following commands ignore
113 .Bl -tag -width ".Cm geteotmodel"
115 Read the hardware block position.
117 number reported is specific for that hardware only.
118 With drive data compression especially,
119 this position may have more to do with the amount of data
120 sent to the drive than the amount of data written to tape.
121 Some drives do not support this.
123 Read the SCSI logical block position.
124 This typically is greater than the hardware position
125 by the number of end-of-file marks.
126 Some drives do not support this.
129 .It Cm offline , rewoffl
130 Rewind the tape and place the drive off line.
131 Some drives are never off line.
134 This winds the tape from the current position to the end
135 and then to the beginning.
136 This sometimes improves subsequent reading and writing,
137 particularly for streaming drives.
138 Some drives do not support this.
140 Output status information about the drive.
141 For SCSI magnetic tape devices,
142 the current operating modes of density, blocksize, and whether compression
143 is enabled is reported.
144 The current state of the driver (what it thinks that
145 it is doing with the device) is reported.
146 If the driver knows the relative
147 position from BOT (in terms of filemarks and records), it outputs that.
149 that this information is not definitive (only BOT, End of Recorded Media, and
150 hardware or SCSI logical block position (if the drive supports such) are
151 considered definitive tape positions).
153 Output (and clear) error status information about this device.
155 operation (e.g., a read or a write) and every control operation (e.g,, a
156 rewind), the driver stores up the last command executed and it is associated
157 status and any residual counts (if any).
158 This command retrieves and outputs this
160 If possible, this also clears any latched error information.
162 Output the current EOT filemark model.
164 many filemarks will be written at close if a tape was being written.
166 Wind the tape to the end of the recorded data,
167 typically after an EOF mark where another file may be written.
170 The following commands require an
172 .Bl -tag -width ".Cm seteotmodel"
174 Set the hardware block position.
177 is a hardware block number to which to position the tape.
178 Some drives do not support this.
180 Set the SCSI logical block position.
183 is a SCSI logical block number to which to position the tape.
184 Some drives do not support this.
186 Set the block size for the drive.
189 is the number of bytes per block,
190 except 0 commands the drive to use variable-length blocks.
192 Set the EOT filemark model to
194 and output the old and new models.
195 Typically this will be 2
196 filemarks, but some devices (typically QIC cartridge drives) can
197 only write 1 filemark.
198 You may only choose a value of
203 Set the drive's compression mode.
204 The non-numeric values of
208 .Bl -tag -width 9n -compact
210 Turn compression off.
220 IBM Improved Data Recording Capability compression (0x10).
222 DCLZ compression algorithm (0x20).
225 In addition to the above recognized compression keywords, the user can
226 supply a numeric compression algorithm for the drive to use.
228 cases, simply turning the compression
230 will have the desired effect of enabling the default compression algorithm
231 supported by the drive.
232 If this is not the case (see the
234 display to see which compression algorithm is currently in use), the user
235 can manually specify one of the supported compression keywords (above), or
236 supply a numeric compression value from the drive's specifications.
238 Set the density for the drive.
239 For the density codes, see below.
240 The density value could be given either numerically, or as a string,
244 If the string is abbreviated, it will be resolved in the order
245 shown in the table, and the first matching entry will be used.
247 given string and the resulting canonical density name do not match
248 exactly, an informational message is output about what the given
249 string has been taken for.
252 The following density table was taken from the
253 .Sq Historical sequential access density codes
254 table (A-1) in Revision 11 of the SCSI-3 Stream Device Commands (SSC)
255 working draft, dated November 11, 1997.
257 The density codes are:
258 .Bd -literal -offset 3n
259 0x0 default for device
260 0xE reserved for ECMA
262 Value Width Tracks Density Code Type Reference Note
264 0x01 12.7 (0.5) 9 32 (800) NRZI R X3.22-1983 2
265 0x02 12.7 (0.5) 9 63 (1,600) PE R X3.39-1986 2
266 0x03 12.7 (0.5) 9 246 (6,250) GCR R X3.54-1986 2
267 0x05 6.3 (0.25) 4/9 315 (8,000) GCR C X3.136-1986 1
268 0x06 12.7 (0.5) 9 126 (3,200) PE R X3.157-1987 2
269 0x07 6.3 (0.25) 4 252 (6,400) IMFM C X3.116-1986 1
270 0x08 3.81 (0.15) 4 315 (8,000) GCR CS X3.158-1987 1
271 0x09 12.7 (0.5) 18 1,491 (37,871) GCR C X3.180 2
272 0x0A 12.7 (0.5) 22 262 (6,667) MFM C X3B5/86-199 1
273 0x0B 6.3 (0.25) 4 63 (1,600) PE C X3.56-1986 1
274 0x0C 12.7 (0.5) 24 500 (12,690) GCR C HI-TC1 1,6
275 0x0D 12.7 (0.5) 24 999 (25,380) GCR C HI-TC2 1,6
276 0x0F 6.3 (0.25) 15 394 (10,000) GCR C QIC-120 1,6
277 0x10 6.3 (0.25) 18 394 (10,000) GCR C QIC-150 1,6
278 0x11 6.3 (0.25) 26 630 (16,000) GCR C QIC-320 1,6
279 0x12 6.3 (0.25) 30 2,034 (51,667) RLL C QIC-1350 1,6
280 0x13 3.81 (0.15) 1 2,400 (61,000) DDS CS X3B5/88-185A 5
281 0x14 8.0 (0.315) 1 1,703 (43,245) RLL CS X3.202-1991 5
282 0x15 8.0 (0.315) 1 1,789 (45,434) RLL CS ECMA TC17 5
283 0x16 12.7 (0.5) 48 394 (10,000) MFM C X3.193-1990 1
284 0x17 12.7 (0.5) 48 1,673 (42,500) MFM C X3B5/91-174 1
285 0x18 12.7 (0.5) 112 1,673 (42,500) MFM C X3B5/92-50 1
286 0x19 12.7 (0.5) 128 2,460 (62,500) RLL C DLTapeIII 6,7
287 0x1A 12.7 (0.5) 128 3,214 (81,633) RLL C DLTapeIV(20) 6,7
288 0x1B 12.7 (0.5) 208 3,383 (85,937) RLL C DLTapeIV(35) 6,7
289 0x1C 6.3 (0.25) 34 1,654 (42,000) MFM C QIC-385M 1,6
290 0x1D 6.3 (0.25) 32 1,512 (38,400) GCR C QIC-410M 1,6
291 0x1E 6.3 (0.25) 30 1,385 (36,000) GCR C QIC-1000C 1,6
292 0x1F 6.3 (0.25) 30 2,666 (67,733) RLL C QIC-2100C 1,6
293 0x20 6.3 (0.25) 144 2,666 (67,733) RLL C QIC-6GB(M) 1,6
294 0x21 6.3 (0.25) 144 2,666 (67,733) RLL C QIC-20GB(C) 1,6
295 0x22 6.3 (0.25) 42 1,600 (40,640) GCR C QIC-2GB(C) ?
296 0x23 6.3 (0.25) 38 2,666 (67,733) RLL C QIC-875M ?
297 0x24 3.81 (0.15) 1 2,400 (61,000) CS DDS-2 5
298 0x25 3.81 (0.15) 1 3,816 (97,000) CS DDS-3 5
299 0x26 3.81 (0.15) 1 3,816 (97,000) CS DDS-4 5
300 0x27 8.0 (0.315) 1 3,056 (77,611) RLL CS Mammoth 5
301 0x28 12.7 (0.5) 36 1,491 (37,871) GCR C X3.224 1
304 0x2B 12.7 (0.5) 3 ? ? ? C X3.267 5
305 0x41 12.7 (0.5) 208 3,868 (98,250) RLL C DLTapeIV(40) 6,7
306 0x48 12.7 (0.5) 448 5,236 (133,000) PRML C SDLTapeI(110) 6,8
307 0x49 12.7 (0.5) 448 7,598 (193,000) PRML C SDLTapeI(160) 6,8
309 .Bd -literal -offset 3n
310 Code Description Type Description
311 ---- -------------------------------------- ---- -----------
312 NRZI Non return to zero, change on ones R Reel-to-reel
313 GCR Group code recording C Cartridge
314 PE Phase encoded CS Cassette
315 IMFM Inverted modified frequency modulation
316 MFM Modified frequency modulation
318 RLL Run length limited
319 PRML Partial Response Maximum Likelihood
321 .Bd -literal -offset 3n
324 2. Parallel recorded.
325 3. Old format known as QIC-11.
327 6. This is not an American National Standard. The reference is based on
328 an industry standard definition of the media format.
329 7. DLT recording: serially recorded track pairs (DLTapeIII and
330 DLTapeIV(20)), or track quads (DLTapeIV(35) and DLTapeIV(40)).
331 8. Super DLT (SDLT) recording: 56 serially recorded logical tracks with
332 8 physical tracks each.
335 .Bl -tag -width ".Ev TAPE"
337 This is the pathname of the tape drive.
338 The default (if the variable is unset, but not if it is null) is
340 It may be overridden with the
345 .Bl -tag -width ".Pa /dev/*sa[0-9]*" -compact
347 QIC-02/QIC-36 magnetic tape interface
348 .It Pa /dev/*sa[0-9]*
349 SCSI magnetic tape interface
352 The exit status will be 0 when the drive operations were successful,
353 2 when the drive operations were unsuccessful, and 1 for other
354 problems like an unrecognized command or a missing drive device.
356 Some undocumented commands support old software.
370 Extensions regarding the
376 command, and have been merged into the
383 command that used to be a synonym for
385 has been abandoned in
387 since it was often confused with
389 which is fairly dangerous.
391 The utility cannot be interrupted or killed during a long erase
392 (which can be longer than an hour), and it is easy to forget
393 that the default erase is long.
395 Hardware block numbers do not always correspond to blocks on the tape
396 when the drive uses internal compression.
398 Erasure is not guaranteed if the tape is not at its beginning.
400 Tape-related documentation is poor, here and elsewhere.