The Ftape Installation and Usage Guide - Ioctls
MTIOCTOP
The MTIOCTOP ioctl provides control over various tape operations.
The following list may be incomplete and covers at most those operations
that are supported by ftape-4.04. Please refer also to the file
`/usr/include/sys/mtio.h'. Most of the operations below can be sent
to a tape device using the mt program. There is probably a
version of this program installed on your computer already, however,
there is a modified version of the GNU mt program contained in
the ftape-tools package(1). Please refer also to the manual page of the mt
program (`man 1 mt') or to the documentation contained in the
ftape-tools package in case you are
using. See Ftmt (info file ftape-tools).
Some tape operations take an optional numerical argument which defaults
to `1' when using the mt program. Each of the explanations
below contains a (very short) example how to use the mt program
to send the command to the drive.
| MTRESET | Reset drive and driver. |
| MTFSF | Skip forward over file marks. |
| MTBSF | Skip backward over file marks. |
| MTFSR | Skip forward over tape records. |
| MTBSR | Skip backwards over tape records. |
| MTWEOF | Write file mark. |
| MTREW | Rewind cartridge. |
| MTOFFL | Put drive off-line. |
| MTNOP | No op, set status. |
| MTRETEN | Retension the cartridge. |
| MTBSFM | Skip backwards over file marks. |
| MTFSFM | Skip forward over tape file marks. |
| MTEOM | Skip to end of recorded area. |
| MTERASE | Erase cartridge. |
| MTSETBLK | Setting the block size (ftape-3.04d (and later versions)). |
| MTSETDENSITY | Setting the debugging level (ftape-3.04d (and later versions)). |
| MTSEEK | Seek to absolute tape block (ftape-3.04d (and later versions)). |
| MTTELL | Request tape position, buggy. |
| MTSETDRVBUFFER | Set amount of driver memory (ftape-3.04d (and later versions)). |
| MTLOCK | Lock the tape door (Ditto Max). |
| MTUNLOCK | Unlock the tape door (Ditto Max). |
| MTLOAD | Unimplemented (Ditto Max). |
| MTUNLOAD | Unimplemented (Ditto Max). |
| MTCOMPRESSION | Switch compression on and off (ftape-3.04d (and later versions)). |
| MTSETPART | Set the active partition (Ditto Max). |
(1) You can download the ftape-tools package from the
Ftape home page
or from ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/kernel/tapes/
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