System Administration Guide: Basic Administration

Copying Files to a Tape With the pax Command

How to Copy Files to a Tape (pax)

  1. Change to the directory that contains the files you want to copy.

  2. Insert a write-enabled tape into the tape drive.

  3. Copy the files to tape.


    $ pax -w -f /dev/rmt/0 filenames
    

    -w

    Enables the write mode. 

    -f /dev/rmt/0

    Identifies the tape drive. 

    filenames

    Indicates the files and directories that you want to copy. Separate multiple files with spaces. 

    For more information, see pax(1).

  4. Verify that the files are copied to tape.


    $ pax -f /dev/rmt/0
    
  5. Remove the tape from the drive and write the names of the files on the tape label.

Example—Copying Files to a Tape (pax)

The example shows how to use the pax command to copy all the files in the current directory.


$ pax -w -f /dev/rmt/0 .
$ pax -f /dev/rmt/0
filea fileb filec