fscat(1M)                          (VxFS)                         fscat(1M)

NAME
     fscat - cat a Veritas File System (VxFS)

SYNOPSIS
     fscat [-F vxfs] [-o offset] [-l length] [-b blocksize] special

DESCRIPTION
     The fscat utility provides an interface to a Veritas snapshot file
     system similar to that provided by the dd utility invoked on the spe-
     cial file of other Veritas file systems. On most Veritas file systems,
     the block or character special file for the file system provides
     access to a raw image of the file system, for purposes such as backing
     up the file system to tape; on a snapshot file system access to the
     corresponding block or character special provides little useful infor-
     mation. The fscat utility, however, provides a stream of bytes repre-
     senting the file system snapshot. This can be processed in a pipeline,
     written to a tape, etc. fscat will work when executed on the special
     device of any Veritas file system.

     By default, the output is a stream of bytes that starts at the begin-
     ning of the file system and goes to the end. On a snapshot file sys-
     tem, data is read from the file system using the VXSNAPREAD ioctl(2)
     on the mount point, in VXMAXIO chunks. On other Veritas file systems,
     data is read from the specified special file in VXMAXIO chunks.
     Unless otherwise specified, data is written in blocks of size
     stblksize as returned by a fstat on stdout.

     All numbers entered as options may have "0" prepended to indicate
     octal, or "0x" prepended to indicate hexadecimal. A "b" may be
     appended to indicate the value is in 512-byte blocks, a "k" to indi-
     cate the value is in kilobytes, or an "m" to indicate the value is in
     megabytes. An appended letter may be separated from the number by a
     space.

OPTIONS
     -F vxfs         Specify a Veritas FSType.

     -o offset       Specify the starting offset, in bytes.

     -l length       Specify the length, in bytes. A length of 0 goes to
                     the end of the file system.

     -b blocksize   Specify the output block size, in bytes. blocksize
                     must be less than or equal to 1 megabyte.











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fscat(1M)                          (VxFS)                         fscat(1M)

NOTES
     fscat is invoked as /usr/lib/fs/vxfs/fscat. This should change to the
     same invocation mechanism as other file system specific utilities in
     the future.

     A snapshot file system cannot be written to. A snapshot file system
     exists only as long as it is mounted; once unmounted the special file
     no longer contains a snapshot file system.

     VXMAXIO is defined in sys/fs/vxparam.h.

SEE ALSO
     dd(1), fs(4-vxfs), vxfsio(7).









































Page 2                       Reliant UNIX 5.44                Printed 11/98