Duplicating ignite tapes

[Valisha Bradford]

Hello all.

I created an ignite tape using the make_tape_recovery command. I put the ignite tape into tapedrive1 and would like to write its contents onto another tape. The second tape is tapedrive2. I want to make a bootable copy of this ignite tape. Please let me know if the below command is the correct syntax for creating a duplicate copy of an ignite tape?

Thanks in advance,

Valisha

copy_boot_tape -u tapedrive1 -p tapedrive2

[Patrick Wallek · Accepted solution]

I personally wouldn't bother with copying the tape, I'd just do another make_tape_recovery to create the 2nd make_tape_recovery tape.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Yes that will will but you need to make sure that the norewind tape devices (e.g. /dev/rmt/1mn - those that end with 'n') are specified.

[Caesar_3]

Hello!

The better is to create another tape
but if no way so you can use the dd
dd if= of= bs=10k

Caesar

[Tim Adamson_1]

Hi,
If you really want to copy the boot tape and not create another one, then use dd as follows:

Copy the lif volume:
dd if=/dev/rmt/0mn of=/dev/rmt/1mn bs=2k

Copy the tar archive:
dd if=/dev/rmt/0mn of=/dev/rmt/1mn bs=10k

Test to make sure the new tape is bootable.

Make sure you use the no rewind tape device for both tapedrives!!!

Cheers!!

[Tim Adamson_1]

Hi Valisha,

I checked your syntax for copy_boot_tape and it looks fine to me.

If you check the copy_boot_tape program it is only a script and it actually uses dd as I mentioned in my previous post. However, it has error checking and offers more funtionality so I would use copy_boot_tape.

Again, the only thing is to ensure you use the no rewind tape device files for both drives!!!


Cheers!

[Zeev Schultz]

Two things -
copy_boot_tape also uses pax (for multivolume ,make_tape_recovery sets) Yes it perform some checks besides usual dd's "I/O error" message.However I don't like very much boot area and files dd'ed using different block sizes.I'd prefer simple plain dd tape-to-tape (or via temp. file) copy using higher block size than set in this script (to be faster)
Anyway it's a personall opinion :)

Regards,
Zeev