topic Re: tar: cannot open /dev/rmt/0mnb in Operating System - HP-UX

tar: cannot open /dev/rmt/0mnb

dictum9 — Wed, 13 Jul 2016 15:29:17 GMT

11.31, rx8640

I am trying to do a backup to tape and get this. The tape drive is this and just got cleaned. The tape is inserted and the "ready" light is on. Yet it just does not see it. I tried different device names but 0mnb did work in the past and now doesn't.

It is a bad tape or the drive went bad or what?

tape 0 0/0/0/3/1.5.0 stape CLAIMED DEVICE HP Ultrium 3-SCSI

>tar -cvf /dev/rmt/0mnb /oracle
tar: cannot open /dev/rmt/0mnb

>ioscan -fnC tape
Class I H/W Path Driver S/W State H/W Type Description
=======================================================================
tape 0 0/0/0/3/1.5.0 stape CLAIMED DEVICE HP Ultrium 3-SCSI
/dev/rmt/0m /dev/rmt/0mn /dev/rmt/c3t5d0BEST /dev/rmt/c3t5d0BESTn
/dev/rmt/0mb /dev/rmt/0mnb /dev/rmt/c3t5d0BESTb /dev/rmt/c3t5d0BESTnb

mt -f /dev/rmt/0mnb status
no tape loaded

Re: tar: cannot open /dev/rmt/0mnb

dictum9 — Wed, 13 Jul 2016 16:04:30 GMT

Strangely, I can now see the tape drive, something works intermittently.

mt -f /dev/rmt/0mnb status
Drive: HP Ultrium 3-SCSI
Format:
Status: [41114400] BOT online compression immediate-report-mode
File: 0
Block: 0

Yet when I try to run the tar command, I get this, almost immediately. After I attempted to rewind it, I am not sure if it did.

a /oracle/app/product/oraInventory/OraInstall2007-10-19_12-42-39PM/jre/1.4.2/lib/IA64N/motif21/libmawt.so 2535 blocks
a /oracle/app/product/oraInventory/OraInstall2007-10-19_12-42-39PM/jre/1.4.2/lib/IA64N/native_threads/libhpi.so 459 blocks
a /oracle/app/product/oraInventory/OraInstall2007-10-19_12-42-39PM/jre/1.4.2/lib/IA64N/server/libjvm.so 55144 blocks
Tar: end of tape
Tar: to continue, enter device/file name when ready or null string to quit.

User entered a null name for next device file.

Is there a problem with the tape or the drive?

Edit: 5 minutes later it cannot read the device with the status command:

mt -f /dev/rmt/0mnb status
on tape open: No such device or address

Re: tar: cannot open /dev/rmt/0mnb

dictum9 — Tue, 19 Jul 2016 18:10:37 GMT

I am getting a slightly different error now, tar writes to tape for a few hours and then this. I installed GNU tar to handle files larger than 8GB but regular tar does the same thing.

Any idea?

/usr/local/bin/tar: /dev/rmt/0mnb: Cannot write: I/O error

/usr/local/bin/tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now

Re: tar: cannot open /dev/rmt/0mnb

Dennis Handly — Sun, 24 Jul 2016 03:01:25 GMT

> I installed GNU tar to handle files larger than 8GB

pax(1) can also handle these large files.

>/usr/local/bin/tar: /dev/rmt/0mnb: Cannot write: I/O error

I would hope it is smart enough to detect EOT. Have you tried a new tape?