1.\" Copyright (c) 1996 2.\" Mike Pritchard <mpp@FreeBSD.org>. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" Copyright (c) 1983, 1991, 1993 5.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 6.\" 7.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 8.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 9.\" are met: 10.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 11.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 12.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 13.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 14.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 15.\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 16.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 17.\" without specific prior written permission. 18.\" 19.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 20.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 21.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 22.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 23.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 24.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 25.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 26.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 27.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 28.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 29.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 30.\" 31.\" @(#)mtio.4 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/5/93 32.\" $FreeBSD: src/share/man/man4/mtio.4,v 1.8.2.6 2001/08/17 13:08:38 ru Exp $ 33.\" 34.Dd March 5, 2005 35.Dt MTIO 4 36.Os 37.Sh NAME 38.Nm mtio 39.Nd magtape interface 40.Sh DESCRIPTION 41The special files 42named 43.Pa /dev/[nr]sa* 44refer to SCSI tape drives, 45which may be attached to the system. 46.Pa /dev/[nr]sa*.ctl 47are control devices that can be used to issue ioctls to the SCSI 48tape driver to set parameters that are required to last beyond the 49unmounting of a tape. 50.Pp 51The rewind devices automatically rewind 52when the last requested read, write or seek has finished, or the end of the tape 53has been reached. 54The letter 55.Ql n 56is usually prepended to 57the name of the no-rewind devices. 58.Pp 59Tapes can be written with either fixed length records or variable length 60records. See 61.Xr sa 4 62for more information. Two end-of-file markers mark the end of a tape, and 63one end-of-file marker marks the end of a tape file. 64If the tape is not to be rewound it is positioned with the 65head in between the two tape marks, where the next write 66will over write the second end-of-file marker. 67.Pp 68All of the magtape devices may be manipulated with the 69.Xr mt 1 70command. 71.Pp 72A number of 73.Xr ioctl 2 74operations are available 75on raw magnetic tape. 76Consult 77.In sys/mtio.h 78for further information. 79.Sh FILES 80.Bl -tag -width /dev/[nr]sa* -compact 81.It Pa /dev/[nr]sa* 82.El 83.Sh SEE ALSO 84.Xr mt 1 , 85.Xr tar 1 , 86.Xr sa 4 87.Sh HISTORY 88The 89.Nm 90manual appeared in 91.Bx 4.2 . 92An i386 version first appeared in 93.Fx 2.2 . 94.Sh BUGS 95The status should be returned in a device independent format. 96.Pp 97The special file naming should be redone in a consistent and understandable 98manner. 99