NAME

tapecntl - tape control for tape devices

SYNOPSIS

tapecntl [-etrwaluv] [-c arg] [-p arg] [-d density_in_decimal] [-f arg] [device]

DESCRIPTION

The tapecntl command performs certain control operations on tape devices. If neither a device argument is present nor the TAPE environment variable is set, the device /dev/rmt/c0s0n is used.

The following options are accepted:

-e: Erase the entire tape.
-t: Retension the tape, i.e. rewind the tape, wind the tape to end of reel and rewind it.
-r: Reset the tape device.
-w: Rewind the tape.
-p position: Position the tape at the data after the named file mark. The position argument is interpreted relative to the current tape position.

The following options are extensions:

-a: Position the tape at end of data.
-l: Load the tape.
-u: Unload the tape.
-d density_in_decimal: Set the SCSI tape density. Some density codes are: 0 = default (autodetect); 4 = QIC-11; 5 = QIC-24; 15 = QIC-120; 16 = QIC-150; 17 = QIC-320; 20 = EXB-8200; 21 = EXB-8500; 21 = QIC-1000; 34 = QIC-2GB; 140 = EXB-8500c; 144 = EXB-8200c.
-c arg: Enable compression (if arg is different from 0) or disable it (if arg equals 0).
-f arg: Set the tape block size to arg bytes.
-v: Set variable tape block size.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

TAPE: Used as tape device if no device argument is given on the command line.