Re: multi-volume backups with taper?
Carlo U. Segre:
> I have had the same problem. Apparently, taper does not see the
> end-of-tape properly. I got around this by specifying the length of the
> tape in the options. This forced taper to ask for a second tape.
I can reproduce this as well. This may be related to bug #7059 (taper doesn't
autodetect end of zip disk). I also find that taper doesn't autodetect the end
of a hard disk properly.
The taper.txt file says:
End of tape is indicated by one of:
o error code == -1 && errno == ENOSPC
o zero bytes written
o less bytes written than we asked for
20.2. Reading
End of tape is indicated by one of:
o error code == -1 && errno == ENOSPC
o error code == -1 && errno == ENODATA
o returned less bytes than we asked for
End of volume is indicated by
o zero bytes read
o error code == -1 && errno == ENODATA
This is what ftape does for floppy controller tape drives. If are
using another sort of tape drive, then the multiple tape backup
feature will only work if the above is true. If it is not true and you
are able to work out what your particular tape drive does, if you send
me details, I will try and incorporate it into future releases. I'm
especially interested in users of SCSI drives since I have no access
to them.
If your tape drive doesn't support the above, you can use the --tape-
size option to tell taper the size of your tape drive. Tape size is
specified in megabytes, eg. --tape-size 120 means that your tape is
120MB, --tape-size 250 means that your tape is 250MB. Note that these
must be uncompressed sizes. You must specify the same number every
time you start taper - you can put it in your preference file if
necessary. If you don't specify the same number, you will get very
spurious, unpredictable results.
>From the above, it seems that taper should detect the end of tapes if you
are using ftape. But it doesn't for me. Since I'm the maintainer of taper,
I'd like to get this fixed. Could those who are having this proplem write to
me (privately), and tell me what kind of tape drive you are using, and what
tape driver (ie, ftape) you are using. Also, if you could look in taper_log,
and see if it has any error messages, send them to me, that might be useful.
I'll correspond with the author.
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