On 1/9/23 12:16, Dennis Boone via cctalk wrote: > > Then I'd image the tape with Tapeimgr and see if I could figure out > > what software was used. I've reverse-engineered a few, Retrospect and > > one other, I think I uploaded it all to my Github. > > Phil's overall process is good, but you shouldn't use `dd` to image > tapes. It discards tape block length information, which is Bad <tm>. > This Tapeimgr tool just uses dd under the covers. (In some scenarios, > it _may_ be true that the tape blocks are all fixed length, but you may > only get one pass through the tape, so why risk it?) > > I've used the Linux scsitape utility (I think it's part of the mtx package, but can't say offhand). It uses the generic SCSI interface (/dev/sgxx) rather than the mt driver. Also, even if you use the dd commands, be sure to install the mt-st package, as it has a bunch of SCSI tape support logic in it that the default distro doesn't have.
FWIW, Chuck
