Re: Diverting the target of an ontape?

Jacob Salomon wrote: > > Hi Family. > > For over 7 years I have been happily (??) running ontape to back up > OnLine systems. I have always understood that the target of the archive > is the device/file that displays in the TAPEDEV parameter. > > A colleague claimed yesterday that about a month ago he had run an > ontape command and specified a tape device. Now he cannot recall the > command syntax he used. > > Certainly such an option might be desireable - an override of the > TAPEDEV parameter. However, it is nowhere documented (that I can find). > The OnLine log does indicate an archive taken at the time he claims this > feat. > > So, it his memory totally mistaken about the ontape command? He is not > an admin person so he may have been hacking around. But something DID > happen, while the TAPEDEV was /dev/null. Your friend is mistaken Jake. There is no way to override the TAPEDEV from the command line. We use a backup script that permits the operator to specify a tape device. The script then uses awk to modify the TAPEDEV and TAPESIZE parameters in the ONCONFIG file before running ontape. Perhaps the administrator at your friends site has replaced ontape with such a script? BTW: This scheme works fine for ontape -s but, of course you have to use onmonitor to change LTAPEDEV on the fly. Art S. Kagel