15.5. Writing to non-rewinding tape devices

Prerequisites

1. You have installed the mt-st package. For more information, see Installing tape drive management tool.

2. Load the tape drive:

   # mt -f /dev/nst0 load

Procedure

1. Check the tape head of the non-rewinding tape device /dev/nst0:

   # mt -f /dev/nst0 status

2. Specify the pointer at the head or at the end of the tape:

   # mt -f /dev/nst0 rewind

3. Append the data on the tape device:

   # mt -f /dev/nst0 eod
   # tar -czf /dev/nst0 /source/directory/

4. Back up the /source/directory/ to the tape device:

   # tar -czf /dev/nst0 /source/directory/
   tar: Removing leading `/' from member names
   /source/directory/
   /source/directory/man_db.conf
   /source/directory/DIR_COLORS
   /source/directory/rsyslog.conf
   [...]

5. View the status of the tape device:

   # mt -f /dev/nst0 status