taper(8) · carta

NAME

taper - Full-screen system backup utility

SYNOPSIS

taper [option]...

WARNING

This man page is not being maintained and may be out of date. The html documentation that comes with taper is up to date.

DESCRIPTION

taper is a tape backup and restore program that provides a friendly user interface to allow backing/restoring files to a tape drive. Alternatively, files can be backed up to hard disk files. Selecting files for backup and restore is very similar to the Mouseless Commander interface and allows easy traversal of directories. Recursively selected directories are supported. Incremental backup and automatic most recent restore are defaults settings. SCSI, ftape, and zftape drives are supported (ide tape drives and removable media in ALPHA stage). Information about archives is stored on the hard disk allowing information about archives to be obtained without having to have the tape in the drive.

OPTIONS

selects the tape drive you will be using.

scsi: scsi drive

ftape: ftape based tape drive

zftape: zftape based tape drive

ide: ide based tape drive

file: a regular file on the hard disk

removable: a device that needs mounting, eg. a floppy disk

This option must be specified, unless you are using a regular file. NB: Only the highlighted letter of the option is required.

--help|-?: prints help on command line options

--append-on|+a: Append files to archive if it exists. Default.

--append-off|-a

Overwrite existing archive if found.

Note: The append options are only for unattended backups. If you use the main taper program, you will be prompted for whether you wish to append or overwrite an existing archive.

--archive-diff|-A archive_id: Prints the differences between the archive and the filesystem. If archive_id equals 0, the tape that is in the tape drive is used, otherwise, the archive specified is used.

--both|-b file: Equivalent to -n file -f file. Useful when using archive files rather than a tape drive.

--set-ownership-on|+B: After restoring a file, restore the ownership attributes of the file

--set-ownership-off|-B: Don't attempt to set the ownership attributes of a file after restore

--compress-type|-c num

0: No compression

1: Use an external compression program. The program to use is hard compiled and can be changed by editing defaults.h. The default is set to use gzip.

2: Use the internal compression program which is similar to compress. It doesn't provide as good a compression as gzip, but is it much quicker. Note that this compression uses aboutn 2MB of RAM extra so on heavily laoded machines, it can degrade performance. Default.

3: Use the internal compression program which is similar to gzip. It provides the same level of compression as gzip and is much quicker than the external version. It is not as quick as option 2, but is much faster than 1. In addition, it doesn't use anywhere near the memory or system load that 2 requires.

--bad-checksum-on|+C: When doing a mkinfo or complete restore, if a file with a bad checksum is encountered, you will have the option of trying to continue, or assuming the rest of the backup is bad and fudging the info file to reflect this. Default.

--bad-checksum-off|-C: When doing a mkinfo or complete restore, if a file with a bad checksum is encountered, will try to continue without prompting.

--rewinding-device|-f file: Use file as the rewinding archive file. If not specified, the file specified in the environment variable TAPE will be used.

--non-rewinding-device|-n file: Use file as the non-rewinding archive file. If not specified, the file specified in the environment variable NTAPE will be used.

--exclude-files|-F file: A list of files not to include in the backup. Consists of a series of suffixes to exclude separated by spaces. It is not case sensitive (ie. .o is the same as .O). For example, the default setting of ".o ~ core" excludes all files that end in .o, all files that end in ~, and all files named (or ending in) "core".

--exclude-compress|-X file

Specifies which group of files to exclude from compressing. Comprises a string of suffixes separated by a space - eg. ".gz .gif" would exclude files ending in .gz and .gif. It is not case senditive (ie. JPG = jPg etc..) Default is ".gz .gif .Z .zip .jpg .jpeg .rpm .deb .tgz .taz .png .bz2 .tbz .mpg .mp3".

If gzip is used for compression, the assumption is made that gzip is on your path. If you use another compress program, change the entry in defaults.h and recompile.

--print-dir|-d archive_id: Prints the directory of the archive whose id is archive_id and exits. If archive_id equals 0, the directory of the archive of the tape currently in the drive is printed.

--auto-descend-on|+D: If this option is on, in restore, if there are any empty directories, they will automatically be skipped. For example, your files may be in /usr/local/src/xzy with nothing in /usr, /usr/local, or /usr/local/src. When you select /usr from the top restore directory, you will automatically be placed in to /usr/local/src/xzy where the files are, and the empty directories will be skipped. Default

--auto-descend-off|-D: Turn the above off.

--prompt-archive-on|+e: When selecting restore, prints a list of all known archives and the user can select which of these to restore from. Default.

--prompt-archive-off|-e: When selecting restore, automatically selects the archive in the tape drive (or regular file). The user is not given the option to choose the archive to restore from.

--can-seek-on|+E: Tells taper that your tape drive supports a seek ioctl for positioning to a particular block. Default depends on tape drive type.

--can-seek-off|-E: You tape drive doesn't support an ioctl for positioning to a particular block. Taper will use reads to position. Default depends on tape drive type.

--volume-title|-g title: Title of volume. Default is NULL. Only applicable in backup.

--get-blocksize-on|+G: If this option is defined, after taper opens a tape, it tries to get the block size using an ioctl call. This is only for the new zftape driver. Default is on for zftape and off for others.

--get-blocksize-off|-G: Do not try and get the block size.

--soft-links-off|-h: With soft links, store link details only and not linked file. Default.

--soft-links-on|+h: With soft links, store the file, not the link.

--comp-head-start|+H minutes: It is useful for taper to always have a full buffer of data available to send to the tape drive so the tape drive never has to sit and wait. This can be a problem if compression is taking a long time. By giving the compression program a head start, you can try and ensure that taper always has data available to write. A good starting number for large backups is 10 minutes. Default is 0.

--info-files path|-i path: directory where archive information files are saved. Also where file sets are saved. Default /var/lib/taper.

--compress-info-on|+I: turns on compression of info files. Automatically will compress after creation and will decompress when required. Default.

--compress-info-off|-I: Don't compress info files.

--proc-device|-j num: This specifies the device number of the /proc system. This is avoid backing up of the /proc filesystem which is a runtime filesystem used to store the current state of the operating system. If this value is set to 0, then no checking is performed. The default value is 1 (which is the device number of the /proc filesystem under Linux).

--min-before-seek|-J num: When restoring, if the tape needs to be advanced by less than min-before-seek blocks, then a seek will not be issued, rather the tape will continue streaming. This is because if you have a lot of files close together, it's more efficient to just let the drive continue streaming. Default 10.

--erase-tape-on|+k: When using a new tape, overwriting a tape with unrecognized data, or when overwriting existing taper files, if this option is set, taper will try and erase the tape using a standard ioctl call. Floppy tape drives (those based on ftape and zftape require this option to be set.

--erase-tape-off|-k: Will not try to erase a tape before writing new data to it. Most SCSI drives do not require erasing, so you can use this option for them.

--illegal-end-of-tape-off|-K: Tells taper that your tape drive correctly handles the end of tape condition. Use the utility test end of tape to see if your tape drive handles this properly. Default.

--illegal-end-of-tape-on|+K: Tells taper that your tape drive doesn't handle the end of tape condition as per BSD semantics. Use the utility test end of tape to see if your tape drive handles this properly. When taper encounters an error in the tape, it asks you whether this signifies an end of tape or a real error.

--log-file|-l file: name of log file. Default /var/log/taper.log.

--log-level|-m number: logging level (0 = no logging..4 = all). Default = 2.

--size-dirs-on|+M: When you select a directory in backup, it will calculate the directory size. This may take a while for big directories. Default.

--size-dirs-off|-M: No sizing of directories on selection. Quicker, but no indication of size of backup being contemplated.

--limit-log-file|-L number: specifies how many megabytes the log file should be at a maximum. If, after a taper operation, the log file is found to exceed this size, enough bytes are removed from the BEGINNING of the file to ensure the log file becomes number megabytes long. If this is 0, then no checking is done and the log file will continue to grow indefinitely. Default is 99.

--one-file-system|-N: Tells taper to not descend directories that are on other filesystems

--overwrite|-o num

level of overwrite

0 - no overwrite: If the file exists on the hard disk, then it is not overwritten

1 - more recent overwrite. Default.: If the file exists on the hard disk, it is only overwritten if the file on the backup device is more recent

2 - unconditional overwrite.: The file on the hard disk is always overwritten

--tape-overwrite-on|+O: When doing unattended backups, if a tape contains unrecognized data, then if this option is set, then the tape is automatically overwritten.

--tape-overwrite-off|-O: When doing unattended backups, if a tape contains unrecognized data, then the tape is not overwritten - the backup is aborted and a message is mailed to the user. Default.

--preference-file|-p file: Name of preference file.

--tmp-dir|-P dir: Specifies the directory where temporary files are to be placed. Default is /var/tmp.

--only-volume|-q num: Tells restore/backup to only show volume num in it's window. Default is 0 which means show all volumes.

--fast-fsf-on|+Q: Quick fast forwards are enabled. See the section of Quick fast forwards for more details. Default is on for zftape and SCSI and off for ftape.

--fast-fsf-off|-Q: Disable quick fast forwards.

--relative-path|-r path: directory to restore to. Note that the directory structure of the backup is preserved

--exclude-dirs|-R path: which directories to automatically exclude from the backup process. The string consists of a list of space separated directories. Note that the selection is recursive. For example, if your exclude list was "/tmp", the contents of /tmp will not be backed up. Also, none of the directories in /tmp (eg. /tmp/junk) will be backed up. Default is "/tmp /usr/tmp /var/tmp /home/tmp /var/lib/taper".

--strip-number|-s number

remove number leading pathnames. When backing up, the full pathname is stored in the information file (and on the tape). You have the option of removing number leading paths when restoring. For example, if the file backed up was /home/yusuf/taper/README, by specifying -s 2, the file will appear in the restore menu as taper/README. If -s1 was specified, the file will appear as yusuf/taper/README.

If there are more strips than paths (eg. specifying -s 6 in the above example), then the filename only is used (eg. README).

The value -s 99 is a special value and tells restore to work out the optimum number of strips based on common leading paths

The default is -s 99 (ie. auto strip).

--set-blocksize-on|+S: If this option is defined, then before <em/taper/ erase a tape, it tries to set the block size using an ioctl call. This is mainly for the new zftape driver, but some SCSI drives need it. Default is on for zftape and off for others.

--set-blocksize-off|-S

Do not try and set the block size before erasing a tape.

any tape manipulation, it tries to set the block size using an ioctl call first. Also, before erasing a tape, it sets the block size.

--archive-title|-t title: Title of archive. Default is NULL. Only applicable when archive is being created for the first time. If supplied when doing an archive append, then it is ignored.

--incremental-on|+u: When doing a backup, only backup those files selected which are more recent than the files that are on the backup archive. Default.

--incremental-off|-u: When doing a backup, backup all files selected. This option can be overriden when selecting files for backup.

--unattended-file|-U file: Gives the name of a file/directory to be backed up in unattended mode. If the filename begins with a @, then it is taken to be the name of a file set, otherwise, it is a file. You can use as many -U as you like on the command line.

--recent-restore-on|+w: When doing a restore, restore the most recent file with the given filename. For example, if /etc/hosts has been backed up twice in different volumes, restore the file which is newer. Default.

--recent-restore-off|-w: When doing a restore, restore the file that was selected - for example, if you selected /etc/hosts in volume 1, this if the file that will be restored, even if there is an /etc/hosts in volume 2 which is more recent. This option can be overriden when selected files for restoration.

--version|-v: prints version being used. Also prints the options taper was compiled with

--unattended-id|-V: If an archive ID is specified, then taper will only append unattended backups to the archive 'ID'. If another archive tape is in the drive, the backup won't be made and the user mailed. Default.

--block-size|-x num: The size of a block. Apart from the tape header, data is transferred to the tape device in blocks of 'num' size. The default is 28K. If you use a SCSI, see then note above. Num is in bytes.

--alpha-sort-on|+y: Alphabetically sorts the filenames displayed in the right hand window. Default.

--alpha-sort-off|-y: Files are left in the order that they were backed up in.

--min-free|-Y num: Specifies the minimum amount of free disk space that must exist before a file is compressed. num is in kilobytes. Default is 4096K.

--prompt-dirs-on|+z: Turns on confirmation when selecting directories for backing up. Default.

--prompt-dirs-off|-z: Turns off confirmation when selecting directories for backing up

--tape-size|-Z size: Tells taper the size of your tapes in megabytes. This must be the uncompressed size. Note that you must specify the same number every time you start taper. See notes on multiple tape backups for more details. If this value is 0, then taper auto-detects the end of tape. Default is 0 (auto-detect).

Files

/var/lib/taper/*

/var/log/taper.log

/etc/taper/taper.prefs