mt command

This command enables direct tape manipulation.

Syntax

mt[ -f tape-device-name ] command [count ]

Commands

status                          Displays status information about the tape drive

rewind                        Rewinds the tape

retention                      Rewinds the cartridge tape completely

erase                           Erases the entire tape

fsf                                Forward skips count tape files

bsf                                Backward skips count tape files

eom                             Skips to the end of the records cd media

Table

Note :

Let consider the given example

How do they both tar and mt commands are used in Solaris?

#tar cvf/dev/rmt/0ntest

a test/ 0 tape blocks

a test/test1 3 tape blocks

in this instance we are copying a directory test to tape with no

rewind option

/dev/rmt/0 - logiacl the device name of tape drive

n - no rewind option

#tar cvf/dev/rmt/0n oracle

a oracle/ 0 tape blocks

a oracle/initorcl.ora 6 tape blocks

Above also we are copying a directory oracle with no rewind option

#tar cvf/dev/rmt/0 doc

a doc/ 0 tape blocks

a doc/doc1 2 tape blocks

a doc/doc24 tape blocks

In the example doc directory for copied with no rewind option then the tape rewind automatically now I want move to the third archive if I want to restore the doc directly since the first two tape archives holds test and oracle directory respectively use mt to move to the third archive as display below:

mt -f /dev/rmt/0n fsf 2

-f-dump   file(device   we   use   to   take   the   backup, here   it   is   the tape)

/dev/rmt/0n - the tape that we used to take the backup

n-no rewind option

fsf 2 - Forward Skip File-skips 2 files

now use tar to restore doc directory

tar xvf /dev/rmt/0

x doc, 0 bytes, 0 tape blocks

x doc/doc1, 500 bytes, 2 tape blocks

x doc/doc2, 1000 bytes, 4 tape blocks