User manual QUANTUM LTFS

[. . . ] Specifications are subject to change without notice. 2 Contents Quantum LTFS (Linear Tape File System) User Guide 6-67105-01 Rev B December 2010 Introduction This guide provides information about Quantum Linear Tape File System (Quantum LTFS) Software. Quantum LTFS makes tape self-describing, file-based, and easy-to-use and provides users with the ability to use standard file operations on tape media for accessing, managing and sharing files with an interface that behaves like a hard disk. In addition, Quantum LTFS provides the ability to share data across platforms, as you would with a USB drive or memory stick. Quantum LTFS will check and tell you if your tape drive needs updating. Features Quantum LTFS includes the following features: · Provides all you need to use LTO­5 tape media like a disk · Based on open source software, subject to EULA terms and LGPL 2. 1 requirements · Precompiled application versions provided for supported platforms · Full source code available · Supported on Linux® and Mac OS® X Benefits In addition to the wide range of benefits that Quantum LTO-5 Tape drives have to offer, Quantum LTO-5 with Linear Tape File System (LTFS) functionality also delivers: · Faster access to data: When a tape is mounted, the files and directories stored on it appear on the desktop in the same way as a disk directory listing. [. . . ] If FUSE was installed by building from the source, the RPM database may not properly reflect that the dependencies have been installed, which will prevent LTFS from being installed. It is possible to work around this by utilizing the --nodeps option to disable dependency checking, when installing the RPM package. The binary RPM will place three executables in /usr/local/bin/ (ltfs, mkltfs, ltfsck) and a number of dynamic libraries in /usr/local/lib/ (or /usr/local/lib64) and also in a new subdirectory /usr/local/lib/ltfs/ (or /usr/local/lib64/ltfs/). See Using Quantum LTFS on page 8 for the next steps. 6 Linux: Installation and configuration Quantum LTFS (Linear Tape File System) User Guide 6-67105-01 Rev B December 2010 To uninstall LTFS If at a later date you want to uninstall LTFS from your system, use the following command: $ rpm e qtmltfs Mac OS X: Installation and configuration When using Quantum LTFS with Quantum LTO-5 tape drives, the following components are required: · A drive firmware revision that supports dual partitioning · The software package that contains the "run-time" executable · The MacFUSE kernel module · The ICU package (provided) Note: Quantum LTFS will check and tell you if your tape drive firmware needs updating. Downloading and installing Quantum LTFS To download and install Quantum LTFS with precompiled binaries: 1 Before starting to install and use LTFS, you must ensure that the MacFUSE module version 2. 0. 3, 2 is present and loaded. Linux example - $ mkltfs d /dev/st0 f Mac OSx example: $ mfltks d 0 f 8 Using Quantum LTFS Quantum LTFS (Linear Tape File System) User Guide 6-67105-01 Rev B December 2010 mkltfs Options ­d, ­device=<name> Tape device (required). For MacOS X, use the instance number of the tape drive, assigned sequentially by the system starting from 0. ­b, ­blocksize=<value> Number of bytes per block written to tape (defaults to 524288 i. e. Quantum recommends that you do not change this from its default value to avoid problems with interchange. Tape serial number (6 alphanumeric ASCII characters) Tape volume name (empty by default) Rules for files that should go to the index partition. Accepts 'K', 'M' & 'G' suffixes -name=STR filters files whose name matches the expression STR. ­s, ­tapeserial=<id> ­n, ­volumename=<name> ­r, ­rules=<rule[, rule]> ­o, ­nooverride ­q, ­quiet ­f, ­force ­t, ­trace ­h, ­help Disallow mount-time data placement policy changes Suppress progress information and general messages Force reformat of existing LTFS volume (normally prevented) Enable function call tracing (only useful for debugging) This help. 3 Mount the formatted tape cartridge $ mkdir /mnt/lto5 $ ltfs /mnt/lto5 Note: Some operating systems require creating each folder or subfolder in separate commands. For example: $ mkdir /mnt $ cd /mnt $ mkdir lto5 $ cd lto5 Using Quantum LTFS 9 Quantum LTFS (Linear Tape File System) User Guide 6-67105-01 Rev B December 2010 ltfs Options: Tape device (required if not using the default device: /dev/ st0 for Linux, 0 for Mac OS) LTFS work directory (default: /tmp/ltfs/) Enable function call tracing (only useful for debugging) Advanced help, including standard FUSE options Output version information and exit Display this help and exit Set file permissions (octal) Set file owner Set file group Run in foreground ­o devname=<dev> ­o work_directory=<dir> ­o trace ­a ­V, ­version ­h, ­help ­o umask=M ­o uid=N ­o gid=N ­f 4 Write files to the LTFS volume. For example: $ cp r /root /mnt/lto5/ 5 Unmount the tape cartridge. This flushes the data buffer of the file system to the tape cartridge, and prepares for eject. $ umount /mnt/lto5 or $ fusermount u /mnt/lto5 Note: fusermount is only available on Linux. Note: The umount (or fusermount) command will return immediately, but the drive may still be busy writing cached data to tape. Do not attempt to remove the tape cartridge, power down the system or tape drive, or delete the folder where the LTFS volume is mounted, until all tape activity has finished. Attempting these actions before tape activity has finished may cause corruption of the tape format. Usage details File permissions The Quantum LTFS application manages a common set of file permissions for all files and users; file and directory ownership is not recorded to tape media. Files or directories that are write-protected will have permission bits set to 555; write-enabled files 10 Using Quantum LTFS Quantum LTFS (Linear Tape File System) User Guide 6-67105-01 Rev B December 2010 and directories have permission set to 777. By default the user and group information is set to that of the current user; this can be overridden by use of the -o uid and -o gid options to the LTFS application. File types The Quantum LTFS application does not support the creation of symbolic links or hard links within the tape file system. Attempting to create a link or copy a link to tape will result in a "Function not implemented" error. If using the cp command to copy to tape, the '-L' option may be helpful to follow symlinks. The Quantum LTFS application also does not support creation of special files and will report "Function not implemented". File names To maintain compatibility when copying files between multiple platforms, it is strongly recommended that the following characters should not be used in Quantum LTFS for file names, directory names, or extended attributes: * ?< > : "|/\ Limitations · When the tape cartridge is almost full, further write operations will be prevented. from the df command) will indicate that there is still some capacity available, but that is reserved for updating the index when the tape is unmounted. [. . . ] To also delete the ICU package, delete the tree under/Library/Frameworks/ ICU. framework. A: In most cases Quantum recommends that you continue to use your existing backup application. Quantum LTFS provides a good method of storing and transporting large files but is not generally a direct replacement for a backup application. A: Yes, full source code is released under the terms of the LGPL 2. 1 license and can be downloaded from www. quantum. com/LTFS. [. . . ]