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From: idall@augean.OZ (Ian Dall)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: GNU tar
Keywords: tar tape sun 1/4 inch SCSI
Message-ID: <628@augean.OZ>
Date: 23 Oct 89 06:06:58 GMT
References: <1051@faatcrl.UUCP>
Organization: Engineering Faculty, University of Adelaide, Australia
Lines: 17
Reply-To:

In article <1051@faatcrl.UUCP> jimb@faatcrl.UUCP (Jim Burwell) writes:
>Hi there!
>
>Has anyone gotten GNU tar's multivolume option working on a 1/4" SCSI tape
>drive ?  I'm trying to use this option on a Sun 3/160..  It seems like it
>doesn't know when it hits the end of the tape, and mistakes it for an IO error.
>I'd like to know if anyone has a fix for this, before I start hacking :-).

Well, I haven't used GNU tar, but last time I looked the SUN 1/4 in
tape drivers are pretty broken w.r.t. EOM (end of media). IMHO I think
a tape driver write should fail with ENOSPC when an attempt is made to
write past the end of tape. The SunOs 3 and SunOs 4 drivers I tried
just hung. Perhaps GNU tar relies on the error type?
-- 
 Ian Dall           life (n). A sexually transmitted disease which afflicts
                              some people more severely than others.
idall@augean.oz