System Backups and Restores - Solaris 9 System Administrator - page 188

The mt Command
The mt(1) command is used to control magnetic tape operations. This
includes positioning the tape to the beginning of a data set, rewinding the
tape, and even erasing it. Table 8.2 lists the mt operations that are specified
as command-line arguments. Most operations expect a value as another com-
mand-line argument that specifies the number of times the operation should
be repeated (shown in the table as count ). If count is not specified, the oper-
ation is performed once.

Table 8.2 The mt Operations

Command Description

asf count Positions the tape after the count -1 EOF mark

bsf count Skips backward over count EOF marks

bsr count Skips backward over count records

eof count Writes count EOF marks

eom Skips forward to a position after the last data set

erase Erases the entire tape

fsf count Skips forward over count EOF marks

fsr count Skips forward over count records

rewind Rewinds the tape

status Displays the status of the tape drive

If a raw tape device is not specified following the -f command-line argument,
the default tape device /dev/rmt/0n is assumed. The following listing shows
positioning a tape to the fifth data set (that is, skipping over four EOF marks):

# mt -f /dev/rmt/0n fsf 4
#

The ufsdump and ufsrestore Commands
The ufsdump(1M) and ufsrestore(1M) commands are used to back up and
restore UFS file systems or specified files/directories. These commands can per-
form incremental backup and restore operations using the file modification date.

Dumping a File System Using the ufsdump Command
The ufsdump command provides several command-line arguments. Most of
them relate to changing the default characteristics of the backup media.
Table 8.3 lists the more significant command-line arguments of the ufsdump
command.