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MT(1)                       General Commands Manual                      MT(1)

NAME
       mt - magnetic tape control

SYNOPSIS
       mt [-f device] [count]

DESCRIPTION
       Mt  is  a  user  interface  to  the magnetic tape commands described in
       mtio(4).  It allows one to space a tape forwards  or  backwards,  write
       end of file markers, etc.

       With  the  -f  option  a  tape  device  can  be  named,  otherwise  the
       environment variable TAPE is used if set.  Standard input  is  used  if
       the  tape  name  is a dash (-).  The count argument is used to tell how
       many blocks or files to space or how many file markers  to  write.   It
       may  be  a  C-style  decimal, octal or hexadecimal constant, by default
       "1".

       Command is the action to perform, it may be one of  the  following,  or
       any unambiguous prefix (like st for status):

       eof, weof      Write count end-of-file markers.

       fsf            Forward space count file markers.

       fsr            Forward  space  count  records.   (The  size of a record
                      depends on the tape, and may even be variable, depending
                      on the size of the writes.)

       bsf            Backwards  space  count files.  The count may be zero to
                      backspace to the start of the  current  file.   (A  tape
                      device  need  not  support backwards movement, or may be
                      very slow doing it.  Rewinding and forward  spacing  may
                      be better.)

       bsr            Backwards  space  count records.  The tape is positioned
                      after the last block of the previous file if you  hit  a
                      filemark when spacing backwards.  The block count is set
                      to -1 to indicate that the driver has no idea  where  it
                      is on the previous file.

       eom            Forward space to the end of media.

       rewind         Rewind the tape.

       offline, rewoffl
                      Rewind  and take offline.  This may cause some drives to
                      eject the tape.

       status         Shows the status of the drive, the sense key of the last
                      SCSI  error, current file number, current record number,
                      residual count if the last command that encountered end-
                      of-file, and the current block size.

       retension      Removes  tape  tension by winding and rewinding the tape
                      completely.

       erase          Erases the tape completely and rewinds it.

       density        Sets the density code to  read  or  write  the  tape  to
                      count.   Density  codes  supported  depend on the drive.
                      This command need not be used if the  drive  senses  the
                      proper density on read and can only write one density.

       blksize, blocksize
                      Sets  the  block  size used to read or write the tape to
                      count.  This command may be used to select a fixed block
                      size for a variable block size tape.  This will speed up
                      I/O for small block sizes.  Use  a  zero  count  to  use
                      variable sized blocks again.

ENVIRONMENT
       TAPE           Tape drive to use if set.

FILES
       /dev/nrst4     Default tape device.

SEE ALSO
       mtio(4), st(4).

AUTHOR
       Kees J. Bot (kjb@cs.vu.nl)

                                                                         MT(1)

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | ENVIRONMENT | FILES | SEE ALSO | AUTHOR