tcopy man page on FreeBSD

Man page or keyword search:  
man Server   9747 pages
apropos Keyword Search (all sections)
Output format
FreeBSD logo
[printable version]

TCOPY(1)		  BSD General Commands Manual		      TCOPY(1)

NAME
     tcopy — copy and/or verify mag tapes

SYNOPSIS
     tcopy [-cvx] [-s maxblk] [src [dest]]

DESCRIPTION
     The tcopy utility is designed to copy magnetic tapes.  The only assump‐
     tion made about the tape layout is that there are two sequential EOF
     marks at the end.	By default, the tcopy utility will print information
     about the sizes of records and files found on the /dev/sa0 tape, or on
     the tape specified by the src argument.  If a destination tape is also
     specified by the dest argument, a copy of the source tape will be made.
     The blocking on the destination tape will be identical to that used on
     the source tape.  Copying a tape will yield the same program output as if
     just printing the sizes.

     The following options are available:

     -c		Copy src to dest and then verify that the two tapes are iden‐
		tical.

     -s maxblk	Specify a maximum block size, maxblk.

     -v		Given the two tapes src and dest, verify that they are identi‐
		cal.

     -x		Output all informational messages to the standard error
		instead of the standard output.	 This option is useful when
		dest is given as /dev/stdout.

SEE ALSO
     mt(1), mtio(4)

HISTORY
     The tcopy command appeared in 4.3BSD.

BUGS
     Writing an image of a tape to a file does not preserve much more than the
     raw data.	Block size(s) and tape EOF marks are lost which would other‐
     wise be preserved in a tape-to-tape copy.

     End of data (EOD) is determined by two sequential EOF marks with no data
     between them.  There used to be old systems which typically wrote three
     EOF's between tape files.	The tcopy utility will erroneously stop copy‐
     ing early in this case.

     When using the copy/verify option -c, tcopy does not rewind the tapes
     prior to start.  A rewind is performed after writing, prior to the veri‐
     fication stage.  If one does not start at the beginning-of-tape (BOT)
     then the comparison may not be of the intended data.

BSD			       December 20, 2006			   BSD
[top]

List of man pages available for FreeBSD

Copyright (c) for man pages and the logo by the respective OS vendor.

For those who want to learn more, the polarhome community provides shell access and support.

[legal] [privacy] [GNU] [policy] [cookies] [netiquette] [sponsors] [FAQ]
Tweet
Polarhome, production since 1999.
Member of Polarhome portal.
Based on Fawad Halim's script.
....................................................................
Vote for polarhome
Free Shell Accounts :: the biggest list on the net