Linux Tape Backup
Linux Drivers
My first obstacle was getting the drive to show up in Linux. Apparently RHEL/CentOS decided to stop putting LSI SAS2008 (SAS9200-8e) drivers in the distro, starting with RHEL/CentOS8. Here's some more info: https://access.redhat.com/discussions/3722151 Also a helpful vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fOAuXiynYM
I was able to get the correct drivers for my LSI SAS9200-8e using the driver that matched my kernel (CentOS Stream 8/4.18.0-448.el8.x86_6) here: http://mirror.centos.org/centos/8-stream/kmods/x86_64/packages-rebuild/Packages/k/ (I used kmod-mlx4-4.18.0~448-1.el8s.x86_64.rpm).
Also, FWIW, I'm using a Quantum Ultrium LTO 4 (Model B) SAS Tape Drive attached to a LSI SAS9200-8E. I'm using a fresh install of CentOS Stream 8 on a Dell PowerEdge R730xd.
Using The Tape Drive In Linux
The main program you will use is call "mt". You can install it by running sudo yum install mt-st.
/dev/st0 rewinds tape after being written to
/dev/nst0 don't rewind tape after being written to
Check if tape is online
mt -f /dev/st0 status
A cartdrige is inserted and ready to write. Because we used /dev/st0, the tape is now positioned at the beginning.
List The First file
file - < /dev/nst0
Example Output: blah
Forward Tape To Next File
mt -f /dev/nst0 fsf 1
Seek To A File On The Tape
mt -f /dev/nst0 asf {file_number}
File numbers start at zero (0).
Write Directory To Tape, At Current Position
tar cvf /dev/nst0 {directory}
or, you can also write the file list to a file so you have a record of files:
tar cvf /dev/nst0 {directory} | tee {listing.txt}
Rewind The Tape
mt -f /dev/nst0 rewind
List The Files In The Current Tar File
Make sure you move to the tar file you want, first
tar tf /dev/nst0
or, you can also write the file list to a file so you have a record of files:
tar tf /dev/nst0 | tee {listing.txt}