TAPEINFO(1)TAPEINFO(1)NAMEtapeinfo - report SCSI tape device info
SYNOPSIStapeinfo-f <scsi-generic-device>
DESCRIPTION
The tapeinfo command reads various information from SCSI tape drives
that is not generally available via most vendors' tape drivers. It
issues raw commands directly to the tape drive, using either the oper‐
ating system's SCSI generic device ( e.g. /dev/sg0 on Linux, /dev/pass0
on FreeBSD) or the raw SCSI I/O ioctl on a tape device on some operat‐
ing systems.
One good time to use 'tapeinfo' is immediately after a tape i/o opera‐
tion has failed. On tape drives that support HP's 'tapealert' API,
'tapeinfo' will report a more exact description of what went wrong.
Do be aware that 'tapeinfo' is not a substitute for your operating sys‐
tem's own 'mt' or similar tape driver control program. It is intended
to supplement, not replace, programs like 'mt' that access your operat‐
ing system's tape driver in order to report or set information.
OPTIONS
The first argument, given following -f , is the SCSI generic device
corresponding to your tape drive. Consult your operating system's doc‐
umentation for more information (for example, under Linux these are
generally start at /dev/sg0 under FreeBSD these start at /dev/pass0).
Under FreeBSD, 'camcontrol devlist' will tell you what SCSI devices you
have, along with which 'pass' device controls them. Under Linux, "cat
/proc/scsi/scsi" will tell you what SCSI devices you have.
BUGS AND LIMITATIONS
This program has only been tested on Linux with a limited number of
tape drives (HP DDS4, Seagate AIT).
AVAILABILITYtapeinfo is currently being maintained by Robert Nelson <robertnel‐
son@users.sourceforge.net> as part of the 'mtx' suite of programs. The
'mtx' home page is http://mtx.sourceforge.net and the actual code is
currently available there and via SVN from http://source‐
forge.net/projects/mtx.
SEE ALSOmt(1),mtx(1),scsitape(1),scsieject(1),loaderinfo(1)
TAPEINFO1.0 TAPEINFO(1)