*BSD News Article 55510


Return to BSD News archive

Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!news.unimelb.EDU.AU!munnari.OZ.AU!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in1.uu.net!tcsi.tcs.com!agate!tfs.com!mailhub.tfs.com!julian
From: julian@mailhub.tfs.com (Julian Elischer)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: SCSI tape drive backup problems
Date: 28 Nov 1995 11:47:26 GMT
Organization: TRW Financial Systems, Oakland, CA
Lines: 78
Message-ID: <49esse$nk3@times.tfs.com>
References: <817543558.4031@org29.demon.co.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: mailhub.tfs.com

In article <817543558.4031@org29.demon.co.uk>,
Stuart M Pringle <stuartp@org29.demon.co.uk> wrote:
:I am trying to back up files to a Wangtek SCSI tape drive under 2.0.5 but have 
:had no success.  My
:problem is that I find the man pages and the handbook to be very weak when it 
:comes to
:providing a basic explanation of this process.  Frisch's book also runs out of 
:steam on *st* devices!
not surprisingly, as they are quite different on FreeBSD to other systems..

a quick reading course is in order:
man 4 scsi
man 8 scsi
man 4 st
man 1 mt


:
:I do not know if I have to issue a mount command for the tape drive.

No, but as man 4 st will tell you 
there is such a thing as a mount session with tapes...
it's the all the commands between one unload and the next..

an unload is either explicit or implicit..
it's explicit in: "mt -f /dev/nrst0 offline"
it's implicit in: <anything> /dev/rst0   (the close of a rst (not nrst) 
device will also end the session.

but there is no actual 'mount' command needed..

:character devices.  I also don't know which of the dozens of *st* device files 
:I should try to
:write to.
man 4 st
should explane it
:
:When the system boots, it identifies the tape drive and if there is no tape in 
:it, it passes on to
:the next boot up stage as normal.  However, if there is a tape in the drive on 
:boot up, the
:system reports
:
:        st0 (aic0:2:0): timed out
:        device offline
that's unfortunate..
does the boot then fail?
:
:although it doesn't seem to read or write the tape during this process.
:
:Leaving the tape out to get the system to boot, I have tried the dump command in the form
:
:        dump 0uf /dev/rst0 /usr
:
:to back up my /usr files but got the following series of messages:
:
:DUMP: Date of this level 0 dump etc...
:DUMP: Date of last level 0 dump etc...
:DUMP: Dumpin /usr to /dev/rst0
:DUMP: bad sblock magic number
:DUMP: The ENTIRE dump is aborted.

this is a DUMP problem, not a tape problem...

:
:Can somebody please help me?  I would appreciate help in the form of a simple series of
:commands to help me get the device on line, get the files to the tape and then restore them
:individually if need be at some point in the future.
use tar :)
:
:TIA for any help
:
:Stuart
:
:
: