3.4 Tapes

3.4.2 SunOS 5.X

The tape naming convention has been changed for SunOS 5.X. The tape devices are found in the subdirectory /dev/rmt. The tape devices are numbered from 0 and may include in their name certain characteristics, such as tape density, whether it's a no-rewind device, and whether it should use BSD behavior. The latter specifies that when reading past an EOF mark it should return the first record of the next file and that when closing a no-rewind device it should skip a tape space forward.

The logical tape name would be something like:

/dev/rmt/XYbn

where

X specifies the Logical Tape Number

Y specifies the Tape Density (l=low, m=medium, h=high, u=ultra, c=compressed)

b specifies BSD Behavior

n specifies the no-rewind device.

So if you want to use the 5 GByte capacity on a 2/5Gbyte 8mm tape you would use the device

/dev/rmt/0h

which corresponds to the physical device:

/devices/sbus@1,f8000000/esp@0,800000/st@4,0:h

For QIC drives l=>QIC-11, m=>QIC-24, and h=>QIC-150, though if your drive can only write one format that's what will be written regardless of the format selected.

Unix System Administration - 8 AUG 1996

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