When was Ignite Tape Created

[JDM_Nokia]

I recently started a new job and came across an Ignite-UX tape for an HP-UX 11.11 system.  Earlier this week I put together a test system and successfully restored from this tape to my test server.

I would like to label this tape as an Ignite tape (obviously), but would also like to put a date stamp on it as well.  Is there anyway to find out when this Ignite-UX tape was created?

Thanks in advance for your assistace.

[Patrick Wallek · Accepted solution]

The easiest way would be to restore a file that would be written to on a fairly regular basis.  Something like /var/adm/syslog/syslog.log perhaps.

Restore it to a temporary location and you'll see the date / time stamp on the file.

If this is a PA-RISC system do:

(Assuming tape drive is /dev/rmt/0mn -- use whatever is appropriate)

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

# mt -f /dev/rmt/0mn fsf 1

# cd /tmp

# tar -xvf var/adm/syslog/syslog.log

For a Itanium system:

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

# mt -f /dev/rmt/0mn fsf 22

# cd /tmp

# tar -xvf var/adm/syslog/syslog.log

(Note that I ommitted the '/' at the beginning of the path in the tar statements above.  You must leave it like that as that is how it is stored on tape).

This will create the 'var/adm/syslog' directory structure under the /tmp directory since we are using relative path names. 

Now just look at the file and your date should be close to when the Ignite tape was created.

[JDM_Nokia]

That worked great.

Thanks for your help!

[Chirag Parikh]

Even you may try " tar -tvf var/adm/syslog/syslog.log " which will show you the tape drive directory structure without actual extraction. you can say its online tape reading.

Regards,

Chirag Parikh.