The Ftape Installation and Usage Guide

Ftape version 4.03

10 August 1999

Claus-Justus Heine


Copyright © 10 August 1999 Claus-Justus Heine

Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies.

Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided also that the sections entitled ``Copying'' and ``GNU General Public License'' (see GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE) are included exactly as in the original, and provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one.

Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this manual into another language, under the above conditions for modified versions, except that this permission notice may be stated in a translation approved by the Free Software Foundation.

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This document describes basic usage and installation of the floppy tape device driver ftape for Linux.

This document applies to version 4.03 of the ftape device driver.

Copying Your rights and freedoms.
Introduction What is ftape.
Reporting bugs Submitting bug and problem reports.
Documentation Ways to get access to the documentation.
Quick Installation If you are fed up with RTFM.
Installation How to install.
Loading ftape Loading the kernel modules
Testing ftape Testing the driver
File System Interface VFS Interface and Implementation Notes
Concept Index Index.


--- The Detailed Node Listing ---

Ways to get access to the documentation

Sources of Documentation Other documentation packages.
HTML The HTML version of the manual.
Info The Info version of the manual.
Postscript The Postscript version of the manual.
TeXinfo Rebuilding the documentation from source.

Installation

Requirements What is needed for the Installation
Kernel patches Inclusion into kernel, compatibility patches
Compiling ftape Compiling ftape, compile time configuration
Installing ftape Installing the kernel modules and utilities
Un-installing ftape Un-installing the kernel modules and utilities

Requirements

Ftape distribution The floppy tape driver distribution `ftape-4.03.tar.gz'.
Kernel Sources The kernel sources for Linux v1.2.13 or later.
Modules Utilities Utilities for managing kernel modules.
Tape Software Backup software and related programs.
Optional utilities Utilities designed for ftape.
Kernel log daemons Kernel Log Daemons.
The hardware A floppy tape drive.
PnP configuration Plug and Pray (PnP) Utilities.
Documentation formatting Optional: recent documentation formatting tools.

Kernel Patches

Very old kernels What to do if running prehistoric kernels.
v1.2.13 Installation under Linux v1.2.13.
v2.x.x Installation under Linux v2.0.0 and up.

Installation under Linux v1.2.13

Patching 1.2.13 Changing 1.2.13 by using the patch command.
Changing 1.2.13 by hand Doing it yourself.

Compiling ftape, compile time configuration

FDC_OPT Setting up for your hardware
CONFIG_MODVERSIONS Versioned symbols
BROKEN_FLOPPY_DRIVER Ignore bad behaviour of the floppy driver
CONFIG_FT_PROC_FS The procfs Interface of ftape
TRACE_FLAGS Controlling the amount of debugging output

Loading the Kernel Modules

Module Stack Which modules are needed?
Autoloading Using the kernel's module auto-loading
Configure ftape Load time configuration
Inserting ftape Inserting the ftape modules into the kernel

Load time configuration

ftape.o ftape.o module options.
zftape.o zftape.o module options.
zft-compressor.o zft-compressor.o module options.
ftape-internal.o ftape-internal.o module options.
trakker.o bpck-fdc.o trakker.o and bpck-fdc.o module options.
All FDC driver modules General FDC driver module options.

Inserting the ftape modules into the kernel

conf.modules Modifying `/etc/conf.modules'
request_module Using the kernel's module auto-loading mechanism
modprobe Loading the driver with modprobe

Modifying `/etc/conf.modules'

Auto-loading Prepare for module auto-loading
FDC drivers FDC drivers specification in `/etc/conf.modules'
FDC driver options FDC drivers specification in `/etc/conf.modules'
Tricks Automated memory de-fragmentation with swapout
Complete examples Complete examples for `/etc/conf.modules'

Testing the driver

Ftape Tools Useful utilities for ftape.
Preparing the tests Avoiding super user privileges.
Running the tests Performing sample backups.
Other tests Other test runs.
ftape Debugging Messages ftape Debugging Messages.
Output of the status command Output of ftmt status.
Syslog example Syslog example, first tape access.

Useful utilities for ftape

Swapout The memory de-fragmentation utility.
mt The tape control program.
vtblc The volume table manipulation program.
ftformat The formatting program.

VFS Interface and Implementation Notes

Device description Devices provided by ftape-4.03
ftape-2x compatibility Compatibility with ftape-2.x
ftape-3x compatibility Compatibility with ftape-3.04d
ftape-402 compatibility Compatibility with ftape-4.02
File marks `End Of File' marks with ftape-4.03
Tape blocks Recording fixed length data blocks
Compression Builtin Compression
Ioctls The ioctl interface to ftape

Devices provided by ftape-3.04d (and later versions)

Rewinding devices Rewinding and non-rewinding devices
Drive selection The meaning of the digit suffix
zftape devices Devices provided by ftape-3.04d (and later versions)

Rewinding and non-rewinding devices

Header segments Updating of the header segments
tape motion commands Rewinding devices and tape motion commands

Devices provided by ftape-3.04d (and later versions)

zftape devices table Table of devices
zftape devices overview Overview
/dev/qft Devices with QIC-113 volume table segment
/dev/rft Synonym to `/dev/qft'
/dev/zqft Obsolete, no longer supported
/dev/rawft Raw access to all tape segments

Compatibility with ftape-2.x

ftape-2x support Read only support for ftape-2.x
ftape-2x EOF semantics Changed MTBSF and EOM semantics.

File marks

ftape-2x file marks File mark implementation with ftape-2.x
ftape-3x file marks File mark implementation with ftape-3.04d (and later versions)
tar EOF File marks and tar

The ioctl interface to ftape

MTIOCTOP The tape operation wrapper ioctl
MTIOCGET Query the tape status
MTIOCPOS Query the tape position
MTIOCRDFTSEG and MTIOCWRFTSEG Read and write floppy tape segments
MTIOCVOLINFO Query info about the current volume (ftape-3.04d (and later versions))
MTIOCGETSIZE Query the size of the cartridge (ftape-3.04d (and later versions))
MTIOCFTFORMAT Format a floppy tape cartridge (ftape-3.04d (and later versions))
MTIOCFTCMD Send raw QIC-117 commands to the tape drive

The tape operation wrapper ioctl MTIOCTOP

MTRESET Reset drive and driver
MTFSF Skip forward over file marks
MTBSF Skip backward over file marks
MTFSR Skip forward over tape records
MTBSR Skip backwards over tape records
MTWEOF Write file mark
MTREW Rewind cartridge
MTOFFL Put drive off-line
MTNOP No op, set status
MTRETEN Retension the cartridge
MTBSFM Skip backwards over file marks
MTFSFM Skip forward over tape file marks
MTEOM Skip to end of recorded area
MTERASE Erase cartridge
MTSETBLK Setting the block size (ftape-3.04d (and later versions))
MTSETDENSITY Setting the debugging level (ftape-3.04d (and later versions))
MTSEEK Seek to absolute tape block (ftape-3.04d (and later versions))
MTTELL Request tape position, buggy
MTSETDRVBUFFER Set amount of driver memory (ftape-3.04d (and later versions))
MTLOCK Lock the tape door (Ditto Max)
MTUNLOCK Unlock the tape door (Ditto Max)
MTLOAD Unimplemented (Ditto Max)
MTUNLOAD Unimplemented (Ditto Max)
MTCOMPRESSION Switch compression on and off (ftape-3.04d (and later versions))
MTSETPART Set the active partition (Ditto Max)

Formatting of cartridges using MTIOCFTFORMAT

FTFORMAT compatibility Differences between ftape-3.04d and ftape-4.03
struct mtftformat MTIOCFTFORMAT ioctl definition
FTFMT_SET_PARMS Set software parameters
FTFMT_GET_PARMS Get software parameters
FTFMT_FORMAT_TRACK Start formatting a tape track
FTFMT_STATUS Monitor formatting a tape track
FTFMT_VERIFY Verify a floppy tape segment


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