TAPEEXERCISE(8)TAPEEXERCISE(8)NAMEtapeexercise - exercise a tape drive
SYNOPSIS
for UNIX
tapeexercise [ -vBEFP ] devname
for Windows
tapeexer [ -vBEFP ] devname
DESCRIPTION
The tapeexercise program writes sample data to a tape, and tests to see
if positioning and read operations perform as expected. It needs a
write-enabled tape on the indicated (no-rewind) drive.
tapeexercise should be used with extreme caution. The following points
apply to testing a tape using the tapeexercise (UNIX) or tapeexer (Win‐
dows) command:
- Do not use the tapeexercise or tapeexer command on any tape
containing data that you will need later, because the tests
overwrite data currently on the tape.
- After testing is completed, re-label any tape that you have
used in testing. If the tape is not re-labeled, it cannot be
used for subsequent backups or recoveries.
- Using barcode-labeled tapes for testing is not recommended. It
is more difficult to re-label a tape with a barcode label,
because the barcode label is linked to the volume id, which is
in the media database.
Successful completion is indicated by a ``<test name>: test begin,''
``<test name>: test ok'' pair for each test that is run. An example is
as follows:
BasicTest: test begin
BasicTest: test ok
OPTIONS-v Operate in verbose mode.
-B Perform only the basic test.
-E Perform only the EOT test.
-F Perform only the File Space Forward test.
If none of the options BEFP are set, then all of the tests are per‐
formed.
devname
The device name of the tape device under test. This should be a
non-rewind device, following the local operating system conven‐
tion.
EXIT STATUS
The following are the error numbers with which tapeexercise could exit:
ETAPE (40) : Error in accessing and/or using the tape device
EBASICTEST (41) : Error while running the basic test
EEOTTEST (42) : Error while running the EOT test
EFSFTEST (43) : Error while running the FSF test
Note that if more than one test fails, the exit code will reflect the
last test that failed.
For all other errors, tapeexercise exits with a non-zero error, usually
1.
SEE ALSOnsrmmd(8), Hardware Compatibility Guide.
LIMITATIONS
The tapeexercise program will generally fail for QIC drives, because
these devices do not support all of the functionality assumed by tape‐
exercise, most importantly, they do not support back-skip-file. Such
devices may work with nsrmmd(8); consult the Hardware Compatibility
Guide for a complete list of supported devices.
NetWorker 7.3.2 Aug 23, 06 TAPEEXERCISE(8)
