xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/tcopy/tcopy.1 (revision 2be1a816b9ff69588e55be0a84cbe2a31efc0f2f)
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32.\"     @(#)tcopy.1	8.2 (Berkeley) 4/17/94
33.\" $FreeBSD$
34.\"
35.Dd December 20, 2006
36.Dt TCOPY 1
37.Os
38.Sh NAME
39.Nm tcopy
40.Nd copy and/or verify mag tapes
41.Sh SYNOPSIS
42.Nm
43.Op Fl cvx
44.Op Fl s Ar maxblk
45.Oo Ar src Op Ar dest
46.Oc
47.Sh DESCRIPTION
48The
49.Nm
50utility is designed to copy magnetic tapes.
51The only assumption made
52about the tape layout is that there are two sequential EOF marks
53at the end.
54By default, the
55.Nm
56utility will print
57information about the sizes of records and files found
58on the
59.Pa /dev/sa0
60tape, or on the tape specified by the
61.Ar src
62argument.
63If a destination tape is also specified by the
64.Ar dest
65argument, a copy of the source tape will be made.
66The blocking on the
67destination tape will be identical to that used on the source tape.
68Copying
69a tape will yield the same program output as if just printing the sizes.
70.Pp
71The following options are available:
72.Bl -tag -width ".Fl s Ar maxblk"
73.It Fl c
74Copy
75.Ar src
76to
77.Ar dest
78and then verify that the two tapes are identical.
79.It Fl s Ar maxblk
80Specify a maximum block size,
81.Ar maxblk .
82.It Fl v
83Given the two tapes
84.Ar src
85and
86.Ar dest ,
87verify that they are identical.
88.It Fl x
89Output all informational messages to the standard error
90instead of the standard output.
91This option is useful when
92.Ar dest
93is given as
94.Pa /dev/stdout .
95.El
96.Sh SEE ALSO
97.Xr mt 1 ,
98.Xr mtio 4
99.Sh HISTORY
100The
101.Nm
102command appeared in
103.Bx 4.3 .
104.Sh BUGS
105.Bl -item
106.It
107Writing an image of a tape to a file does not preserve much more than
108the raw data.
109Block size(s) and tape EOF marks are lost which would
110otherwise be preserved in a tape-to-tape copy.
111.It
112End of data (EOD) is determined by two sequential EOF marks
113with no data between them.
114There used to be old systems which typically wrote three EOF's between tape
115files.
116The
117.Nm
118utility will erroneously stop copying early in this case.
119.It
120When using the copy/verify option
121.Fl c ,
122.Nm
123does not rewind the tapes prior to start.
124A rewind is performed
125after writing, prior to the verification stage.
126If one does not start
127at the beginning-of-tape (BOT) then the comparison
128may not be of the intended data.
129.El
130