mt-gnu1

Control magnetic tape drive operation

Usage

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

Overview

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: Perform long erase of tape. If count is 0, perform short erase of tape (some devices do not support this).

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.

Releases

12 releases since Debian 3.0 (Woody); the text changed 6 times.