Hi, Laurence!
Trying to kill the keyboard, Laurence John Oliver
([EMAIL PROTECTED]) produced 1,6K in 49 lines:
> All *seemed* to be going well until it turns out that there is no way I
> can actually ERASE or back up over archives written to the tape (whether
> it be using DUMP or TAR or whatever...)
Tape being tape, not a disk (oh, that was covered a few
postings before on that list, you say?)
Ok, try rewinding first and *then* writing on the tape
(effectively overwriting/erasing[1] all the backups on the
tape) or appending to the tape (spool to eod (End Of Data)
first, then write[2]).
There is no sane way of overwriting single archives inside
a tape (length!?!). You probably can use mt to write a "no
more data after this" marker after any archive, but I have
not tested this and do not know if the driver will allow it.
(Anyway, you'd loose all archives after the marker ...).
I do not know if that helps you, though. :-/
-Wolfgang
[1] Well, not physically erasing, the NSA will still read the
data with ease. But your normal tape drive will see the
"no more data after this" marker at the end of your
archive.
[2] The "no more data after this" marker being a
"End of Archive" "End of Archive"
marker pair, this will place you inbetween them and thus
overwriting the second "End of Archive" marker ...
