/LTO-cheatsheet

Just a short cheatsheet with various commands useful for interacting with lto tapes/devices and tape libraries

LTO-cheatsheet

list SCSI devices with lsscsi

lsscsi lists all SCSI devices

SCSI tape device names

with auto-rewind

/dev/st[0-9]

without auto-rewind

/dev/nst[0-9] usefull for writing multiple files to tape one by one

examples

  • /dev/st0 accessing the first tape device with auto-rewind
  • /dev/nst1 accessing the second tape device without auto-rewind

interacting with the tape using tar

writing to the tape

tar -cvf <tape device name> <path to the data to be written>

  • -c, --create

    • Create a new archive.

  • -v, --verbose

    • Verbosely list files processed.

  • -f, --file=ARCHIVE

    • Use archive file or device ARCHIVE.

list the contents of a tape

tar -tvf <tape device name>

  • -t, --list

    • List the contents of an archive.

  • -v, --verbose

    • Verbosely list files processed.

  • -f, --file=ARCHIVE

    • Use archive file or device ARCHIVE.

extract the contents of a tape

tar -xvf <tape device name> -C <path to the data destination>

  • -x, --extract, --get

    • Extract files from an archive.

  • -v, --verbose

    • Verbosely list files processed.

  • -f, --file=ARCHIVE

    • Use archive file or device ARCHIVE.

  • -C, --directory=DIR

    • Change to DIR before performing any operations.

examples

  • tar -cvf /dev/nst0 /tmp This command writes all data of the /tmp directory to tape device number 1 without auto-rewinding the tape first
  • tar -tvf /dev/st1 This commond lists the contents of tape device number 2 after auto-rewinding the tape
  • tar -xvf /dev/st0 -C /tmp This command extracts the contents of tape device number 1 to the /tmp directory after auto-rewinding the tape

interacting with the tape media changer/library using mtx

inventory the library

mtx -f /dev/sch[0-9] invetory

  • -f Device
    • Use device Device.

print the status of the media changer/library

mtx -f /dev/sch[0-9] status

load tape into the tape drive

mtx -f /dev/sch[0-9] load <slotnum> <drivenum>

unload the tape from the tape drive into a free slot

mtx -f /dev/sch[0-9] unload <slotnum> <drivenum>

examples

  • mtx -f /dev/sch0 load 4 0 uses media changer number 1 to load the tape from slot number 4 into drive number 1
  • mtx -f /dev/sch2 unload 2 3 uses media changer number 3 to unload the tape from drive number 4 into slot number 2