tape drive and tar xvf /dev/rmt/om file

[Stephen Badgett]

Hi,

We tar ball some files to tape and trying to restore to a different HP-UX machine with the same OS version 11.11 and same type of tape drive and the file does not get extracted from tape. These are DDS-3 tape drives.

Here is the command we use to store the file to tape ...
timex /usr/bin/tar cvf /dev/rmt/1m /eloq/drug/newdrug/DRUG-UPDATE.tar.Z
and the restore command on the different HP-UX machine ...
/usr/bin/tar xvf /dev/rmt/0m DRUG-UPDATE.tar.Z
(note: the light does blink when trying to extract the file form tape)
We have also tried ...
/usr/bin/tar xvf /dev/rmt/0m *
too with no results.

We have tried taking the drive offline and remounting the tape ...
mt -f /dev/rmt/0m offl
and remount tape -- ejects the tape fine but still does not extract the file.

When we look at the status it shows Beginning (Bottom) Of Tape ...
mt -f /dev/rmt/0m status
Drive: HP C1537A
Format: DDS-3 format
Status: [41112500] BOT online compression immediate-report-mode
File: 0
Block: 0

When we list the names the file is there

/usr/bin/tar vtf /dev/rmt/0m *
rw-rw-rw- 129/20 35734325 Jul 7 09:21 2004 /eloq/drug/newdrug/DRUG-UPDATE.tar.Z

Also we tried the same on a non-compressed file and it did extract a couple of the files but not all of them and not all the time. weard!

Steve

[Stephen Badgett]

We have tried using this command without a compressed format and it seems to work ...

/usr/bin/tar xvpf /dev/rmt/0m /eloq/drug/newdrug/DRUG-UPDATE.tar

So, is it the full path, the (p) option or compression?

I will try again but with a compressed format

Steve

[Stephen Badgett]

Hi, well might just be me,

Ok, I believe I solved this...

When storing to tape (tar) I fully qualified the path aad when I restore from that tape I have to fully qualify the path there too.

Steve

[florence mathon lermusi · Accepted solution]

to have more flexibility, make a relative path tar, then you will be able to put your file where you want on your target host.

[Stephen Badgett]

Hello Mathon,

That is what we did and it does work just as we would expect, right :)

Thank you,