Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!caen!uflorida!novavax!ankh!branch!tree!wcr From: wcr@tree.tree.metrolink.com (W.c. Rothanburg) Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386 Subject: Re: Tape trivia (was Re: SCO/mountain streamer) Message-ID: Date: 12 Mar 91 09:04:15 GMT References: <6806@spdcc.SPDCC.COM> Sender: wcr@tree.metrolink.com Organization: From the Branch Office.305-979-2073 Lines: 45 In-reply-to: rbraun@spdcc.COM's message of 9 Mar 91 16:05:57 GMT In article <6806@spdcc.SPDCC.COM> rbraun@spdcc.COM (Rich Braun) writes: This is a related question, regarding cpio under SCO and AIX: How do I read tapes across two machines with byte-swapped architectures? I've successfully done this with tapes only (not diskettes) between ISC, and AIX. With the CPIO files, you need to make the tape with the -c option to make the tapes compatible. The tar files should work un-modified. As far as diskettes, I've only been able to do it with DOS files. I use vpix (faster than dossette or mounting the diskette) and copy the files to the diskette. On the aix side, I just use dosread and doswrite as necessary. (I don't have a tape drive on my home system, so I use this more...) Another question: how do I write multiple cpio archives to a single tape? My AIX system doesn't seem to have the no-rewind device defined (and I can't find this item in the documentation), and SCO Unix doesn't seem to provide decent end-of-tape error handling. You have to tell cpio how large your tape is, in kilobytes, which won't work correctly if you try to write multiple archives to one tape. Also, because there seems to be no way to "seek to the beginning of the current archive"-- it seems you have to rewind the tape and skip over the archives, an exceptionally slow process--I'm beginning to believe that I ought to just punt the idea of storing more than one archive per tape. On AIX, the no-rewind setting is /dev/rmt?.1. Also, tctl (I beleive is the name of the program) will allow you to perform tape functions, including forward spacing files. Look in the files reference or infoexplorer for all of the /dev/rmt* options. There are 4 per density. Bill -- Who : Metro Link, Inc. What : X11.R4. for ISC Unix 386/ix, SCO Unix/386, and Everex ESIX Where: 2213 West Mc Nab Road, Pompano Beach,FL 33069 Sales: sales@metrolink.com Email: wcr@metrolink.com Phone: +1 305 970 7353 x927 Fax : +1 305 970 7351