Re: [aclug-L] How to mount a tape drive?

[Steven Saner <ssaner@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

You don't mount a tape drive. You don't mention what program you are
planning to use for making the backup. You can't just copy stuff to
the tape using the cp command. One option would be to use tar. You can
enter something like:

  tar cpf /dev/st0 /

to get stuff off the tape, you would do something like:

  tar xpf /dev/st0

You might also want to look into the dump and restore
programs. Another thing to note with tapes is that if you use the
device /dev/st0, after you write or read something to tope it will
rewind itself. This can be a pain if you want to write several files
one after another. Use the device /dev/nst0 instead and this won't
happen. Other command that you want to become familiar with is the mt
command. This allows you to control the tape drive. For example:

mt -f /dev/nst0 rewind  - rewinds the tape
mt -f /dev/nst0 offline - rewinds the tape if necessary and ejects it
mt -f /dev/nst0 fsf     - moves the tape to the next file

Good luck.

On Thu, Aug 26, 1999 at 02:19:37AM -0500, Kong Wo wrote:
> Hi,
>     I have a SCSI tape drive which is detected on /dev/st0. What I like
> to do is try to mount the tape drive to /root/tape directory.
> I tried to mount it so many times using #mount -t ext2 /dev/st0
> /root/tape, however; is was unsucessfully. I like to know what is the
> magic string which allow me to mount the tape drive since I like to back
> up my whole system. Thank for any helps. Currently, I am using RedHat
> 6.0.
> 
> Kong Wo
> 

-- 
==================================================================
Steven Saner                            SouthWind Internet Access, Inc.
ssaner@xxxxxxxxxxxxx                    Systems/Network Administrator
http://www2.southwind.net/~ssaner       http://www.southwind.net
                                        263-7963 Wichita  (800)525-7963