xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/tcopy/tcopy.1 (revision d4eeb02986980bf33dd56c41ceb9fc5f180c0d47)
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28.\"     @(#)tcopy.1	8.2 (Berkeley) 4/17/94
29.\" $FreeBSD$
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31.Dd December 20, 2006
32.Dt TCOPY 1
33.Os
34.Sh NAME
35.Nm tcopy
36.Nd copy and/or verify mag tapes
37.Sh SYNOPSIS
38.Nm
39.Op Fl cvx
40.Op Fl s Ar maxblk
41.Oo Ar src Op Ar dest
42.Oc
43.Sh DESCRIPTION
44The
45.Nm
46utility is designed to copy magnetic tapes.
47The only assumption made
48about the tape layout is that there are two sequential EOF marks
49at the end.
50By default, the
51.Nm
52utility will print
53information about the sizes of records and files found
54on the
55.Pa /dev/sa0
56tape, or on the tape specified by the
57.Ar src
58argument.
59If a destination tape is also specified by the
60.Ar dest
61argument, a copy of the source tape will be made.
62The blocking on the
63destination tape will be identical to that used on the source tape.
64Copying
65a tape will yield the same program output as if just printing the sizes.
66.Pp
67The following options are available:
68.Bl -tag -width ".Fl s Ar maxblk"
69.It Fl c
70Copy
71.Ar src
72to
73.Ar dest
74and then verify that the two tapes are identical.
75.It Fl s Ar maxblk
76Specify a maximum block size,
77.Ar maxblk .
78.It Fl v
79Given the two tapes
80.Ar src
81and
82.Ar dest ,
83verify that they are identical.
84.It Fl x
85Output all informational messages to the standard error
86instead of the standard output.
87This option is useful when
88.Ar dest
89is given as
90.Pa /dev/stdout .
91.El
92.Sh SEE ALSO
93.Xr mt 1 ,
94.Xr mtio 4
95.Sh HISTORY
96The
97.Nm
98command appeared in
99.Bx 4.3 .
100.Sh BUGS
101.Bl -item
102.It
103Writing an image of a tape to a file does not preserve much more than
104the raw data.
105Block size(s) and tape EOF marks are lost which would
106otherwise be preserved in a tape-to-tape copy.
107.It
108End of data (EOD) is determined by two sequential EOF marks
109with no data between them.
110There used to be old systems which typically wrote three EOF's between tape
111files.
112The
113.Nm
114utility will erroneously stop copying early in this case.
115.It
116When using the copy/verify option
117.Fl c ,
118.Nm
119does not rewind the tapes prior to start.
120A rewind is performed
121after writing, prior to the verification stage.
122If one does not start
123at the beginning-of-tape (BOT) then the comparison
124may not be of the intended data.
125.El
126