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1 .\" Copyright (c) 1996
2 .\" Mike Pritchard <mpp@FreeBSD.org>. All rights reserved.
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4 .\" Copyright (c) 1983, 1991, 1993
5 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
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35 .\" @(#)mtio.4 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/5/93
36 .\" $FreeBSD: src/share/man/man4/mtio.4,v 1.8.2.6 2001/08/17 13:08:38 ru Exp $
37 .\" $DragonFly: src/share/man/man4/mtio.4,v 1.5 2007/10/27 18:45:00 swildner Exp $
38 .\"
39 .Dd March 5, 2005
40 .Dt MTIO 4
41 .Os
42 .Sh NAME
43 .Nm mtio
44 .Nd magtape interface
45 .Sh DESCRIPTION
46 The special files
47 named
48 .Pa /dev/[nr]sa*
49 refer to SCSI tape drives,
50 which may be attached to the system.
51 .Pa /dev/[nr]sa*.ctl
52 are control devices that can be used to issue ioctls to the SCSI
53 tape driver to set parameters that are required to last beyond the
54 unmounting of a tape.
55 .Pp
56 .Pp
57 The rewind devices automatically rewind
58 when the last requested read, write or seek has finished, or the end of the tape
59 has been reached.
60 The letter
61 .Ql n
62 is usually prepended to
63 the name of the no-rewind devices.
64 .Pp
65 Tapes can be written with either fixed length records or variable length
66 records. See
67 .Xr sa 4
68 for more information. Two end-of-file markers mark the end of a tape, and
69 one end-of-file marker marks the end of a tape file.
70 If the tape is not to be rewound it is positioned with the
71 head in between the two tape marks, where the next write
72 will over write the second end-of-file marker.
73 .Pp
74 All of the magtape devices may be manipulated with the
75 .Xr mt 1
76 command.
77 .Pp
78 A number of
79 .Xr ioctl 2
80 operations are available
81 on raw magnetic tape.
82 Consult
83 .In sys/mtio.h
84 for further information.
85 .Sh FILES
86 .Bl -tag -width /dev/[nr]sa* -compact
87 .It Pa /dev/[nr]sa*
88 .El
89 .Sh SEE ALSO
90 .Xr mt 1 ,
91 .Xr tar 1 ,
92 .Xr sa 4
93 .Sh HISTORY
94 The
95 .Nm
96 manual appeared in
97 .Bx 4.2 .
98 An i386 version first appeared in
99 .Fx 2.2 .
100 .Sh BUGS
101 The status should be returned in a device independent format.
102 .Pp
103 The special file naming should be redone in a consistent and understandable
104 manner.