: Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 09:18:09 -0500
: From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
:
: 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.)
:
: 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.
ftape (since version 3.xx) only allows writing in multiple of 10KB
blocks. That can be changed. You can read more on this topic at:
http://www.math1.rwth-aachen.de/~heine/ftape/archives/ftape-3.03a/Doc/Tape_blocks.html
Jochen
