TAPEINFO(1)

📦
version 1.3.12 · 2 versions
, in alpine 3.22, alpine 3.23, alpine 3.24, centos-stream 10, centos-stream 9, debian bookworm, fedora 43, fedora 44, nixos 26.05, nixpkgs unstable, ubuntu jammy

💖 TAPEINFO 💖

okay so bestie, lemme put you onto something. this is tapeinfo, a General Commands Manual girlie whose whole job is: report SCSI tape device info. that's it. that's the gig. 🎀

✨ NAME ✨

tapeinfo — report SCSI tape device info 🦋

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

tapeinfo -f <scsi-generic-device>

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so tapeinfo reads a bunch of information off your SCSI tape drives — the kind of stuff that most vendors' tape drivers just don't hand over. it doesn't ask nicely through the driver, no ma'am, it issues raw commands directly to the tape drive, using either:

  • the operating system's SCSI generic device (e.g. /dev/sg0 on Linux, /dev/pass0 on FreeBSD), or
  • the raw SCSI I/O ioctl on a tape device, on some operating systems.

lowkey one of the best times to run this is immediately after a tape i/o operation has failed 😭 like right after, while the drama is still fresh. on tape drives that support HP's 'tapealert' API, tapeinfo will report a more exact description of what went wrong. so instead of just vibes and mystery errors, you get actual answers. iconic.

🫶 real talk though: tapeinfo is not a substitute for your operating system's own 'mt' or similar tape driver control program. it's meant to supplement, not replace, programs like 'mt' that access your operating system's tape driver in order to report or set information. two different girls, two different jobs. periodt.

✨ OPTIONS ✨

  • -f — the first argument, given following -f, is the SCSI generic device corresponding to your tape drive. 💅 consult your operating system's documentation for more info — for example, under Linux these generally start at /dev/sg0; under FreeBSD these start at /dev/pass0.

and bestie, if you're sitting there like "which device is even mine tho" 🙈:

  • Under FreeBSD, 'camcontrol devlist' will tell you what SCSI devices you have, along with which 'pass' device controls them. 🌸
  • Under Linux, "cat /proc/scsi/scsi" will tell you what SCSI devices you have. ⭐

💀 BUGS AND LIMITATIONS 💀

ngl, this program has only been tested on Linux with a limited number of tape drives (HP DDS4, Seagate AIT). that's the whole list. she's niche and she knows it. 🧚

👑 AVAILABILITY 👑

tapeinfo is currently being maintained by Robert Nelson <robertnelson@users.sourceforge.net> as part of the 'mtx' suite of programs. the 'mtx' home page is http://mtx.sourceforge.net and the actual code is currently available there and via SVN from http://sourceforge.net/projects/mtx. 🫶

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

mt(1), mtx(1), scsitape(1), scsieject(1), loaderinfo(1)

and that's the whole page, bestie 💖 this one's running version TAPEINFO1.0 — shoutout to the mtx suite for keeping her alive, mwah, go read your tapes 🎀✨

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