Linux in a Nutshell, 6th Edition

Name

mt

Synopsis

mt [option] operation [count | arguments]

Control a magnetic tape drive used to back up or restore system data. The version of the mt command documented here is the GNU version of mt. The operation argument determines what action will be taken, and, unless the -f or -t option is used, the action is applied to the default tape drive named in the TAPE -environment variable. The count argument determines how many times the operation is to be repeated. If not specified, it defaults to 1. Some operations take one or more arguments other than a count, as noted in the descriptions below.

Options

-f device, -t device

Name the tape device to use. This may be a local device, a character special file (see mknod), or a remote device, named in the format host:/path/to/drive or user@host:path/to/drive.

--help

Print usage message and exit.

-V, --version

Print version number and exit. Also tells you if you are running the GNU version of mt or the mt-st version.

Operations

mt can perform the following operations on tape drives. Unique abbreviations are allowed.

asf n

Move to file number n on the tape. This is the same as rewinding the tape and moving forward n files with fsf.

bsf n

Move backward n files, positioning the tape at the last block of the previous file.

bsfm n

Move backward n file marks, to a position on the side of the file mark closer to the beginning of the tape.

bsr n

Move backward n records.

eof, weof n

Write n end-of-file (EOF) notations at the current location on the tape.

erase

Erase ...