From owner-freebsd-questions Fri Sep 11 17:16:18 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id RAA02297 for freebsd-questions-outgoing; Fri, 11 Sep 1998 17:16:18 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from starlight.bogusdomain.ca (mcmail.CIS.McMaster.CA [130.113.20.6]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id RAA02285 for ; Fri, 11 Sep 1998 17:16:11 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from strohsr@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca) Received: from localhost (ralph@localhost) by starlight.bogusdomain.ca (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id SAA08855; Fri, 11 Sep 1998 18:20:21 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from strohsr@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca) Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1998 18:20:20 -0400 (EDT) From: Ralph Strohschein Reply-To: Ralph Strohschein To: Roman Katsnelson cc: "q's" Subject: Re: tape backup In-Reply-To: <35F9787B.6867F857@graphnet.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Fri, 11 Sep 1998, Roman Katsnelson wrote: > Hi, > > As a quick intro -- I am positively NOT asking anyone to do my work for > me here, just need a pointer in a relatively relevant direction. :) > > I just hooked up a SCSI tape drive to my machine. I got a tape, and > tried to test it. However, between the book, handbook and FAQ I was only > able to get as far as assuming that it's on /dev/rst0. I tried to mount > it on a directory and got this: > > /dev/rst0 on /backup: Block device required. > > I don't even know what that means... Help! > I'm sure this stuff is documented and I'm missing it... > > Thanks as always, > Roman > Tapes are not meant to be mounted, rather they are written to directly, usually with programs such as tar, dump, cpio, and dd. Tar and dump are probably the most useful, so have a look at their man pages. Note that you also have the /dev/nrst0 device, which is the /dev/rst0 device with auto-rewinding disabled. This feature is useful when you want to have more than one backup on one tape. Also look at the man page for mt, which is used to position, rewind, and eject the tape. In a nutshell: tar -cvf /dev/nrst0 . will back up the current directory and all subdirectories to tape. I hope this helps. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message