Re: tape support

[Corinna Vinschen <corinna at vinschen dot de>]

Hi Juan,

first of all, please send plain text messages, no html. Thanks.

> JUAN LUIS GARCIA BUENDIA wrote:
> 
> Installing a copy of cigwin32 form latest directory does not create
> the special files (devices) under /dev directory that are needed to
> make
> tape backups.

That's ok. The /dev/foo devices are implemented internaly.
There is no need to explicitly create /dev or anything in
it.

What's really needed for the tape support are mount table
entries which map the POSIX tape device name to the windows
tape device name. The NT device names for tapes are 

	\\.\tapeX

with X is the ordinal number of the tape drive, beginning
with 0. So if you only have one tape drive, it's name is:

	\\.\tape0

The POSIX name is any device name you want which begins with
"/dev/". The same name beginning with character `n' is then
used for the no rewind device. What you have to do is, mount
your tape device:

	mount -f -b -s //./tape0 /dev/st0
	mount -f -b -s //./tape0 /dev/nst0

> i have also errors issueing mknod, wich does not work properly
> with the option -m. and without behaves wildly

mknod isn't implemented in cygwin. You have two types of
/dev devices. The raw devices and `all other'. All other are
eg. ttys or com ports. They already exist and you can use
them without having to care for creating the /dev entry.
Try "echo surprise > /dev/tty"

The raw devices have to be mounted. They are internally known
by their windows name and you can name them in the POSIX name
space via the mount table. For example you may want to use
the partition X: as raw device (caution!):

	mount -f -s -b //./X: /dev/hdc3

or the floppy:

	mount -f -s -b //./A: /dev/fd0

or the complete hard drive 1 (numbering scheme is visible in the
disk management tool of NT):

	mount -f -s -b //./physicaldrive1 /dev/hdb	

> the mt command that i have downloaded from Corinna's site, behaves
> randomly...

It needs the mount table entries shown above.

Hope, this helps,

Corinna Vinschen
Cygwin Developer
Cygnus Solutions, a Red Hat company

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