Eject tape from DLT drive

[Paul Wright]

Is there a command like
mt -t offl
that will work on DLT tape drives?

Thanks
Paul

[Tom Danzig · Accepted solution]

mt -t /dev/rmt/?m offl will work with DLT drives. Is the drive in a tape library? If so, this will take it offline but will not physically eject the tape. You need to use the robotic arm via mc or uma commands to remove it ... or simply open up the library and move the lever on the drive to manually unload the tape.

[MANOJ SRIVASTAVA]

Hi Paul


I dont think that can be done . May be you like to look at this :

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0xced5d08cc06fd511abcd0090277a778c,00.html


Manoj Srivastava

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi Paul,

Nope, sorry.
HP does not have an eject command like Solaris.
We'd all like one, but............

Rgds,
Jeff

[A. Clay Stephenson]

If you are talking about a standalone DLT drive then 'offl' is about as good as it gets.
'offl' will the rewind the medium, unlock the mechanism, and illuminate the 'Operate Handle' LED but the operator still has to manually operate the handle to eject the medium.

[S.K. Chan]

You can't eject the tape from DLT drive with the mt command that you've mentioned here. As far as I know you can only do this if you got Omniback loaded which has a command named "uma" (universal media agent) and it's in /opt/omni/lbin/uma (obviously you will not have this on your system but I just want to mention it anyway).
The "uma" command has the "offl" option that will do the eject "physically".

[Helen French]

Hi Paul:

The command you specified will bring the DLT media to offline mode ( will not eject by itself, you have to use the handle operator). But in DDS drives, the same command will eject the tape out of the drives ( these are only drive mechanic specific).

If you go through these man pages, you will get a better idea:

# man mt
# man mc
# man 7 mt

Another option is the 'uma' utility with Omniback.

HTH,
Shiju

[Paul Wright]

I realize there is nothing that will auto eject from a DLT, I just want to make it so another backup cannot overwrite the tape if it gets left in the drive by mistake.
A.C.S. Are you saying that the offl command will do this?

[Helen French]

Hi Paul (again):

Yes, the offl command with mt will do that trick. If you invoke this command, the DLT drive will go offline and if you want that to make online (writable/readable), then you have to manually eject and reload the media.

Read the man pages for more information

HTH,
Shiju

[Michael Tully]

Hi,

What is being mentioned is correct:

# mt -t /dev/rmt/1m rew
# mt -t /dev/rmt/1m offl

If the tape drive is a stand-a-lone you can
eject the tape by lifting the handle. If it
is in a tape library you can use the 'uma'
command or the 'mc' command. If you choose the
'mc' command and you use omniback or similar
you will need to to do a barcode scan of your
library so that your database remains in sync.

Cheers
~Michael~

[Fred Martin_1]

I have a DLT 7000, and use 'mt' and 'offl' and although it physically doesn't pop the tape out, it does in fact take it offline. The tape cannot be used until it is removed and re-inserted. My goal was the same as yours, to prevent the tape from being overwritten if left in the drive. It works fine for us.

[Sanjay_6]

Hi Paul,

As suggested by other forum members, if you are using a standalone DLT drive, you will still have to operate the handle to eject the DLT from the drive after running the mt command with the offl option for the drive. No other solution.

Hope this helps.

Regds

[Paul Wright]

Thank you all (again) for the info. Appreciate all the help.

Paul