xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/tcopy/tcopy.1 (revision 315ee00f)
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28.\"     @(#)tcopy.1	8.2 (Berkeley) 4/17/94
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30.Dd December 20, 2006
31.Dt TCOPY 1
32.Os
33.Sh NAME
34.Nm tcopy
35.Nd copy and/or verify mag tapes
36.Sh SYNOPSIS
37.Nm
38.Op Fl cvx
39.Op Fl s Ar maxblk
40.Oo Ar src Op Ar dest
41.Oc
42.Sh DESCRIPTION
43The
44.Nm
45utility is designed to copy magnetic tapes.
46The only assumption made
47about the tape layout is that there are two sequential EOF marks
48at the end.
49By default, the
50.Nm
51utility will print
52information about the sizes of records and files found
53on the
54.Pa /dev/sa0
55tape, or on the tape specified by the
56.Ar src
57argument.
58If a destination tape is also specified by the
59.Ar dest
60argument, a copy of the source tape will be made.
61The blocking on the
62destination tape will be identical to that used on the source tape.
63Copying
64a tape will yield the same program output as if just printing the sizes.
65.Pp
66The following options are available:
67.Bl -tag -width ".Fl s Ar maxblk"
68.It Fl c
69Copy
70.Ar src
71to
72.Ar dest
73and then verify that the two tapes are identical.
74.It Fl s Ar maxblk
75Specify a maximum block size,
76.Ar maxblk .
77.It Fl v
78Given the two tapes
79.Ar src
80and
81.Ar dest ,
82verify that they are identical.
83.It Fl x
84Output all informational messages to the standard error
85instead of the standard output.
86This option is useful when
87.Ar dest
88is given as
89.Pa /dev/stdout .
90.El
91.Sh SEE ALSO
92.Xr mt 1 ,
93.Xr mtio 4
94.Sh HISTORY
95The
96.Nm
97command appeared in
98.Bx 4.3 .
99.Sh BUGS
100.Bl -item
101.It
102Writing an image of a tape to a file does not preserve much more than
103the raw data.
104Block size(s) and tape EOF marks are lost which would
105otherwise be preserved in a tape-to-tape copy.
106.It
107End of data (EOD) is determined by two sequential EOF marks
108with no data between them.
109There used to be old systems which typically wrote three EOF's between tape
110files.
111The
112.Nm
113utility will erroneously stop copying early in this case.
114.It
115When using the copy/verify option
116.Fl c ,
117.Nm
118does not rewind the tapes prior to start.
119A rewind is performed
120after writing, prior to the verification stage.
121If one does not start
122at the beginning-of-tape (BOT) then the comparison
123may not be of the intended data.
124.El
125