System Tape Device Driver

System Tape Device Driver

Tape devices in /dev/[r]mt are operated by the magnetic tape device driver, which is documented in the tps(7) reference page. Users normally control tapes using such commands as tar, dd, and mt (see the tar(1), dd(1M) and mt(1) reference pages), but it is also common for programs to open a tape devices and then to use read(), write(), and ioctl() to interact with the device driver.

Since the tape device driver supports the read/write interface, you can schedule tape I/O through the asynchronous I/O interface (see "Asynchronous I/O Basics"). You need to take pains to ensure that asynchronous operations to a tape are executed in the proper sequence; see "Multiple Operations to One File".