HP LTO Ultrium 5 tape drives UNIX, Linux and OpenVMS configuration guide (March 2010)

2. Write a sample file to tape, using ‘tar’:

% cd /% tar cvf <device_file> <file>

The options to tar have the following meanings:

Create a new archive (backup file) on the device.

Operate in verbose mode.

Specify the device file explicitly.

The arguments follow the cvf options in the command line. Their values depend on the operating

system; suggested values are given the appropriate operating system chapter. The arguments

are as follows:

The name of the device file for the drive.

Example:/dev/rmt/c4t3d0BESTnb

The name of the file to archive, prefixed with ‘./’.

Example:./stand/vmunix

<file>

NOTE:

Make sure you prefix the file name with ‘.’ when you back it up to tape. If you do not, the

restore operation in step 3 will overwrite the original copy on disk.

3. Read the file back from tape:

% cd /tmp % tar xvf <device file>

The ‘x’ option to tar here means “extract from the archive”.

Use the same value for the <device file> argument as in step 2.

4. Compare the original with this retrieved file:

% cmp <original file> /tmp/<retrieved file>

This compares the files byte by byte. If they are the same, there should be no output, and this

verifies that the installation is correct. The arguments are:

The name of the original file, prefixed with ‘/’.

Example:/stand/vmunix

The name of the file retrieved from the archive.

Example:stand/vmunix

Example

Suppose you are verifying the installation of an HP LTO Ultrium tape drive on an HP-UX 11.X system.

The procedure would be as follows:

1. Use ioscan to obtain the tape drive device file options:

%/sbin/ioscan -fnC tape

Identify the Berkeley ‘no-rewind’ option, for example: /dev/rmt/c4t3d0BESTnb

Verifying the installation32