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Before a tape can be used it must be mounted by KDat. There are three ways to mount a tape:
KDat will rewind the tape, and read the header information from the tape. If KDat does not recognize the header on the tape, you will be prompted to format the tape.
If KDat recognizes the header it will look for the corresponding tape index on your local disk. If the tape index cannot be found you will be prompted to recreate the index from tape.
If all goes well, the tape drive icon will change to indicate that the tape has been mounted, and a message will appear in the status bar. The contents of the tape can be explored under the tape drive tree node.
Before ejecting a tape, you must unmount the tape. There are three ways to unmount the tape:
KDat will acknowledge that the tape has been unmounted by changing the tape drive icon, and displaying a message in the status bar. The tape may now be safely ejected.
Before a tape can be used by KDat, it must be formatted by KDat. Some types of tapes must be formatted before they can be used to store data. This is not what KDat does when formatting a tape. If your tape drive requires that the tapes be formatted before using them, then they must be formatted before they can be "formatted" by KDat. Typically floppy tape drives require that their media be formatted, but DAT drives do not.
There are two ways to format a tape:
You will be prompted for a name for the tape, and the stated capacity of the tape. Both of these parameters can be changed after the tape has been formatted. The tape name is only used to identify the tape to the user; it is not used to identify the tape index associated with the tape. Instead, a unique tape identifier is automatically generated and written to the tape. The stated capacity of the tape is used by KDat to warn the user if there will not be enough space to complete a backup.
After entering the tape name and capacity, KDat will proceed to format the tape. ALL DATA ON THE TAPE WILL BE LOST. Once KDat has finished formatting the tape, the tape will be automatically mounted and is ready for use.
Before initiating a backup, you must select some files to archive. There are three ways to select files for backup:
Three are four ways to initiate a backup:
Once the backup has been initiated, the "Backup Options" dialog will appear. This dialog gives you a chance to review the selected files, and change the backup options.
After accepting the backup options, the "Backup" dialog will appear. This dialog shows the progress of the backup including throughput and time remaining.
Before initiating a verify, you must select some files to verify. There are two ways to select files for verification:
There are three ways to initiate a verify:
Once the verify has been initiated, the "Verify Options" dialog will appear. This dialog gives you a chance to review the selected files, and change the working directory for the verifyication.
After accepting the verify options, the "Verify" dialog will appear. This dialog shows the progress of the verification including throughput and time remaining.
Before initiating a restore, you must select some files to restore. There are two ways to select files for restoring:
There are three ways to initiate a restore:
Once the restore has been initiated, the "Restore Options" dialog will appear. This dialog gives you a chance to review the selected files, and change the working directory for the restore.
After accepting the restore options, the "Restore" dialog will appear. This dialog shows the progress of the restore including throughput and time remaining.
Sometimes it may be necessary to receate the tape index file from the tape contents. This process will overwrite any existing index file for the tape. There are two way to recreate an index from tape:
The "Index" dialog will appear. This dialog shows KDat's progress as it creates the index file.
There are two ways to create a backup profile:
This should create a new backup profile using the currently checked files and the default backup options. The following options can be set for the backup profile:
The symbolic name for the archive. It can be changed later.
The current working directory to perform the bakcup in. The list of files to backup is automatically updated to reflect the selected working directory.
For each directory that is listed under "Backup files", only the files under that directory that are on the same filesystem as the directory will be archived. Directories on different filesystems can be listed under "Backup files", and each will be treated independently of the others, by tar.
Perform an incremental backup. A snapshot file is used to determine which files have changed since the last incremental backup. Only the files that have changed will be archived.
The name of the file that is used to determine which files have changed since the last incremental backup.
Remove the snapshot file before invoking tar. This has the effect of backing up all of the files, and creating the snapshot file for use next time.
The list of files to backup can be modified by pressing the "Files >>" button. This will make the currently checked files become the list of files to backup. The "<< Files" button can be used to make the set of checked files be the files listed for backup.
You must press the "Apply" button to commit any changes made to the backup profile.
User preferences can be configured by selecting "Preferences..." from the "Edit" menu. The following preferences can be configured:
This value will be used as the default tape size when formatting a tape.
The hardware block size for the tape drive. For floppy tape drives this value should be 10240 bytes.
The full path to your tape device (usually /dev/tape). This path must point to the non-rewind version of you tape device.
The full path to the tar command on your system.
If enabled, before trying to mount a tape KDat will issue an "mt load" command to the tape drive. Some drives may require this before reading and writing the tape.
If enabled, whenever a tape is mounted by KDat, the tape drive will be asked to disable the eject button. This option may not work with all tape drives.
If enabled, whenever a tape is unmounted by KDat, the tape will automatically be ejected from the drive. Do not use this option with floppy tape drives.
If enabled, KDat will attempt to change the hardware block size used by the tape drive. Not all drives support variable block size. Whether this feature is enabled or not, you must tell KDat the block size that your tape drive uses (i.e. 10240 for ftape users).
When KDat formats a tape it writes a single file at the beginning of the tape. This file should only occupy a single tape block. The contents of the file are:
The tape ID is used to locate a file, with the same name, in the $HOME/.kdat directory.
Each of the remaining files on the tape are plain-old tar archives. You should be able to manipulate them directly with GNU tar. Even non-GNU tar should work for non-incremental backups.
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