I was able to successfully use tar/ftape to backup my RH5.0 system to a
Colorado T3000. Now, I'm trying to use tar/ftape to backup my RHlinux 6.0
system (same physical PC), but am having severe difficulties getting the
blocking factor to work.
(RH6.0 comes with kernel 2.2.5-15 and ftape 3.04.)
I load ftape and zftape (insmod ftape; insmod zftape) and confirm the load
with lsmod.
I now have two versions of tar-1.13.11 - one compiled with DEFAULT_BLOCKING
= 58 and one compiled with DEFAULT_BLOCKING = 20. I alternately cp one or
the other of them to /bin/tar to do tests.
Using 'tar20', I can write to /dev/ftape if I do not use a
--blocking-factor clause. But if I specify --blocking-factor=58, tar falls
over: (tar: Cannot write to /dev/ftape: Invalid argument.) However, I *can*
write to a disk archive with --blocking-factor=58.
Using 'tar58', I cannot write to /dev/ftape if I do not use a
--blocking-factor clause. But I *can* write to a disk archive without the
clause. And if I specify --blocking-factor=20, tar *will* write
successfully to /dev/ftape.
I cannot write to /dev/ftape (linked to /dev/rft0) with either dd or cpio
*in any circumstances*, whether or not a blocking factor of 58 is used.
(e.g. dd: /dev/ftape: Invalid argument.) The tar maintainer suggests that
the precise nature of the tar problem, in conjunction with these factors,
means the problem is in the hardware or the driver.
The hardware has remained unchanged. kernel and driver have changed.
I've downloaded the latest version of ftape (4.02) but am reluctant to
start playing around with it for fear of the impact on the kernel - and not
knowing whether my efforts would be successful, anyway.
Do you have any clues? This is starting to kill me. Thanks for your help.
Mike Harrison
