The Ftape Installation and Usage Guide

Ftape version 4.04

21 July 2000

Claus-Justus Heine


Copyright © 21 July 2000 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 4.04 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.


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-4.04.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 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

Devices description Devices provided by ftape-4.04.
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-4.04.
Tape blocks Recording fixed length data blocks.
Compression Builtin Compression.
Ioctls The ioctl interface to ftape.

Devices provided by ftape-4.04

devfs support Device naming with devfs.
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-4.04

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' (sym-link).
/dev/zqft Obsolete, no longer supported.
/dev/rawft Synonym to `/dev/qft' (sym-link).

Compatibility with ftape-2.x

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

Compatibility with ftape-4.02

Tape block addressing Tape block addressing.
Raw access mode Raw access mode.

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.
MTIOCFTMODE Switching between raw and regular mode.

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-4.04.
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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