,
pax(1),
cpio(1), and
dd(1) all
work with Windows tape devices, as does the mt(1) utility, which you can use to give
commands to a tape drive.Interix uses Windows tape driver software, and thus supports the
same tape devices as Windows. The Interix utilities tar(1),
pax(1),
cpio(1), and
dd(1) all
work with Windows tape devices, as does the mt(1) utility, which you can use to give
commands to a tape drive.
The name of the tape device determines the mode in which the device is opened. Devices that contain an n in their name are opened in non-rewind mode. For example, the devices /dev/tape0 and /dev/ntape0 refer to the same tape drive, but ntape0 forces the tape to be opened in non-rewind mode.
Although the tar file format is very portable for data exchange, using tar with tape devices can be frustrating because, although the file format is portable, the tape format often is not. Operating systems access tape devices in many different ways, and the default behavior on one platform is unlikely to be same as the default behavior on another platform. This incompatibility usually shows itself in two ways: through blocking factors and hardware compression.
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