NAME

mt − magnetic tape manipulating program

SYNOPSIS

mt [ −f tapename ] command [ count ]

DESCRIPTION

Mt sends commands to a magnetic tape drive.  If a tape name is not specified, the environment variable TAPE is used;  if TAPE does not exist, mt uses the device /dev/rmt12. Note that tapename must reference a raw (not block) tape device.  By default mt performs the requested operation once.  Operations may be performed multiple times by specifying count.

The available commands are listed below.  Only as many characters as are required to uniquely identify a command need be specified. 

eof, weof
Write count end-of-file marks at the current position on the tape. 

fsf Forward space count files. 

fsr Forward space count records. 

bsf Back space count files. 

bsr Back space count records. 

rewind
Rewind the tape (Count is ignored.) 

offline, rewoffl
Rewind the tape and place the tape unit off-line (Count is ignored.) 

status
Print status information about the tape unit.

Mt returns a 0 exit status when the operation(s) were successful, 1 if the command was unrecognized, and 2 if an operation failed. 

FILES

/dev/rmt∗Raw magnetic tape interface
/dev/rar∗Raw Archive cartridge tape interface
/dev/rst∗Raw SCSI tape interface

SEE ALSO

mtio(4), dd(1), ioctl(2), environ(5)

BUGS

Archive tapes are not full-fledged tape devices, as they do not support the fsr, bsf or bsr options. 

Sun Release 1.1  —  Last change: 7 March 1984