MT

Section: User Commands (1)
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BSD mandoc
BSD 4  

NAME

mt - magnetic tape manipulating program  

SYNOPSIS

mt [-f tapename ] command [count ]  

DESCRIPTION

Mt is used to give commands to a magnetic tape drive. By default mt performs the requested operation once. Operations may be performed multiple times by specifying count Note that tapename must reference a raw (not block) tape device.

The available commands are listed below. Only as many characters as are required to uniquely identify a command need be specified.

eof , weof
Write count end-of-file marks at the current position on the tape.
fsf
Forward space count files.
fsr
Forward space count records.
bsf
Back space count files.
bsr
Back space count records.
rewind
Rewind the tape (Count is ignored).
offline , rewoffl
Rewind the tape and place the tape unit off-line (Count is ignored).
status
Print status information about the tape unit.

If a tape name is not specified, and the environment variable TAPE does not exist; mt uses the device /dev/rmt12

Mt returns a 0 exit status when the operation(s) were successful, 1 if the command was unrecognized, and 2 if an operation failed.  

ENVIRONMENT

If the following environment variable exists, it is utilized by mt

TAPE
Mt checks the TAPE environment variable if the argument tapename is not given.
 

FILES

/dev/rmt*
Raw magnetic tape interface

 

SEE ALSO

dd(1), ioctl(2), environ(7)  

HISTORY

The mt command appeared in BSD 4.3


 

Index

NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
ENVIRONMENT
FILES
SEE ALSO
HISTORY

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Time: 06:33:06 GMT, May 19, 2025