Accesing the tape drive from server

[John Jayaseelan]

Hi,

Could any one please tell, how to access the tape drive from the remote server.

Thanks

[Karthik S S]

You can use,

backupcommand hostname:/dev/rmt/xxx

-Karthik S S

[John Jayaseelan]

Karthik,

Thanks for the reply. I receved the following message.

dd if=cctest:/dev/rmt/0m of=/dev/null bs=2048
cctest:/dev/rmt/0m: No such file or directory
dd: cannot open cctest:/dev/rmt/0m

[G. Vrijhoeven]

Hi,

check the device files :
ioscan -fnkCtape

Gideon

[John Jayaseelan]

# ioscan -fnkCtape
Class I H/W Path Driver S/W State H/W Type Description
=====================================================================
tape 0 8/16/5.0.0 stape CLAIMED DEVICE HP C1537A
/dev/rmt/0m /dev/rmt/c1t0d0BESTn
/dev/rmt/0mb /dev/rmt/c1t0d0BESTnb
/dev/rmt/0mn /dev/rmt/c1t0d0DDS
/dev/rmt/0mnb /dev/rmt/c1t0d0DDSb
/dev/rmt/c1t0d0BEST /dev/rmt/c1t0d0DDSn
/dev/rmt/c1t0d0BESTb /dev/rmt/c1t0d0DDSnb
tape 1 8/16/5.5.0 stape CLAIMED DEVICE HP C1537A
/dev/rmt/1m /dev/rmt/c1t5d0BESTn
/dev/rmt/1mb /dev/rmt/c1t5d0BESTnb
/dev/rmt/1mn /dev/rmt/c1t5d0DDS
/dev/rmt/1mnb /dev/rmt/c1t5d0DDSb
/dev/rmt/c1t5d0BEST /dev/rmt/c1t5d0DDSn
/dev/rmt/c1t5d0BESTb /dev/rmt/c1t5d0DDSnb
[cctest02]: /root

[Elmar P. Kolkman]

Not all commands support remote tape devices. Sometimes you have to use remote shell commands (remsh, ssh, etc.) to access them.

Your commando would become:
remsh cctest -n "dd if=/dev/rmt/0m bs=2048" | dd of=/dev/null bs=2048

[Karthik S S]

Ahh .. I am not sure if dd will support that.
Try,

rsh dd if=/dev/rst0 bs=126b | tar -xvpBfb - 126


Also check this link (really good one)

http://www.sunmanagers.org/archives/1997/0549.html

-Karthik S S

[John Jayaseelan]

Hi,

I would like to restore the data from the remote tape drive onto the local server. I am not sure remsh can do that. If so please tell how?

Thanks

[Karthik S S]

Did you try this??

rsh dd if=/dev/rst0 bs=126b | tar -xvpBfb - 126


-Karthik S S

[John Jayaseelan]

Karthik,

The following is the result.

rsh cctest dd if=/dev/rmt/0m bs=126b | tar -xvpBfb - 126 inittab
tar: B: unknown option
tar: usage tar [-]{txruc}[eONvVwAfblhm{op}][0-7[lmh]] [tapefile] [blocksize] f.
rsh: cctest: not found

John Jayaseelan

[Rita C Workman]

Well this isn't fancy...but....it might be quicker...

You could just write the tape out to a file on that system and then copy it over to your local, or ftp it over to your local.

Just a thought,
Rita

[Mark Grant]

You could, of course, use NFS

Just export the filesystem from the machine you want the data to arrive on to the machine that has the tape drive. Then use your normal restore command, either from the remote machine or as a "remsh" from th second one..

[Elmar P. Kolkman]

I will go to your results and try to explain how to solve the various problems.

>The following is the result.

>rsh cctest dd if=/dev/rmt/0m bs=126b | tar -xvpBfb - 126 inittab
>tar: B: unknown option

This one is quite simple: remove the 'B' option. I don't know what you want with it, but your TAR version running on the HP-UX box doesn't support it.

>tar: usage tar [-]{txruc}[eONvVwAfblhm{op}][0-7[lmh]] [tapefile] [blocksize] f.

This is caused by the 'B' option too.

>rsh: cctest: not found

Ah. This is a nice one. Your problem is the difference between hp-ux and some other ux's.
rsh == restricted shell
remsh == remote shell.
What you want is the latter, so replace the rsh with remsh.

This should do the trick, I guess, or give errors like host not found or access denied, two possible other problems. But those we will get to when you tested this.

[Michael Schulte zur Sur]

Hi,

is there something missing in this thread? How is the data put on tape? tar,fbackup?

Michael

[John Jayaseelan]

Hi,

The following is the output after modification.

# remsh cctest01 dd if=/dev/rmt/0m bs=126b | tar -xvpfb -126 inittab
Invalid blocksize. (Max 64)

The data is copied using tar.

John Jayaseelan

[Michael Schulte zur Sur]

Hi,

use:
remsh cctest01 "dd if=/dev/rmt/0m" | tar xvpf - inittab

Michael