cpio on hp-ux 10.20

[Tammy Liang]

I tried to restore a cpio file from tape with command " cpio -idcmv < /dev/rmt/0m". I got "End of Volume. If you want to go on, type device/file name when ready"
What is "End ov Volume" mean?
I enter "/dev/rmt/0m" and see the size of restored file increased.
What's the cpio command for listing the content of the tape drive?

Thanks for any reply.

Tammy

[Pete Randall]

You might need to rewind the tape first:

mt rew

It sounds to me like you're at the end of the tape.


Pete

[Tammy Liang]

I did not rewind the tape,just enter the tape device file /dev/rmt/0m. Does cpio rewind on its own?
tks

[Johnson Punniyalingam]

Hi Tammy,

>>> I did not rewind the tape,just enter the tape device file /dev/rmt/0m. Does cpio rewind on its own? <<

NO, It doesn't rewind on its own. we have to rewind , please follow the rewind command

# mt -f /dev/rmt/0mn status
(will show you tape is ONLINE)

# mt -f /dev/rmt/0mn rewind

Than try with cpio command for Listing .. :)

Thanks,
Johnson

[Dennis Handly · Accepted solution]

>What is "End of Volume" mean?

It means what it says. You are at the end of the tape reel. You need to "mount" another.

>I enter "/dev/rmt/0m"

I assume you first ejected the tape and put the next volume there?

>What's the cpio command for listing the content of the tape drive?

I suggest you give up on tar(1) and cpio(1) and only use pax(1).
You simply use:
pax -tv -f /dev/rmt/0m

>Pete: You might need to rewind the tape first

Are you suggesting the tape was first written and now read, without rewinding?

[Tammy Liang]

All,
Thanks for the reply.I did not eject/rewind the tape. I just entered the same device name and cpio append the file to the same file name. Looks like cpio handle the rewind part.

Tammy

[Tammy Liang]

All,
How can I setup block size with cpio to restore file?
I'm using "cpio idcmv < /dev/rmt/0m".

Thanks.

[OldSchool]

as far as I know, you can't. it is what it is.

man "cpio" seems to indicate that it deals in 512 byte blocks.

one wonders why you ask

[Dennis Handly]

>How can I setup block size with cpio to restore file? I'm using "cpio idcmv < /dev/rmt/0m".

Do you know what the block size is? You have N options, use -B for 5120 bytes, use a pipe with dd to reblock or good old pax(1).

>OldSchool: as far as I know, you can't. it is what it is. one wonders why you ask

See above. It would also be helpful to know how it was written to tape?

Also, as I mentioned, pax(1) will magically figure out how to read your tape. See:
-b blocking Blocking is automatically determined on input.

[Tammy Liang]

I don't know how the file cpio to tape.
It was old tape that we need to restore for
oracle data. After restore the file
with cpio, oracle import failed. I restored
the files from 2 different tapes, and imp failed on both of export files.
So the bottom line is you can not setup block size for cpio when restore from the tape drive.