Write File to Tape Using tar+pv with Progress Bar: A Solution

Prerequisites

Before we begin, ensure you have the following:

• A Unix or Linux system with tar, pv, and dd installed.
• Access to a tape drive.

Writing a File Tape Using tar pv and Progress Bar

The following steps will guide you through the process of writing a file tape using tar pv and progress bar:

1. Create a test file:

 touch testfile
 echo "This is a test file." > testfile
 

2. Mount the tape drive:

 mount /dev/st0 /mnt/tape
 

3. Create a new tape:

 tar cvf /dev/st0 myfile testfile
 

The above command creates a new archive named "myfile" on the tape drive. However, it does not provide any progress information or error handling. To improve this, we will use tar with pv and progress bar.

4. Write the file tape with progress bar:

 tar cvf /dev/st0 myfile testfile | pv -s $(stat -c %s testfile)kB > /dev/null &
 tar tvf /dev/st0 | tee /mnt/tape/myfile.log
 

The above command creates the archive and writes it to the tape drive using tar. The output of the tar command is piped to pv, which provides a progress bar and estimates the remaining time based on the file size. The "pv -s" option sets the size of the input file, and "> /dev/null" redirects the output to null to hide it. The "tee /mnt/tape/myfile.log" command writes the output to a log file on the mounted tape drive.

5. Check the file tape:

 tar tvf /dev/st0
 

The above command lists the contents of the file tape and verifies that the file has been written correctly.

6. Unmount the tape drive:

 umount /mnt/tape
 

In this article, we learned how to write a file tape using tar pv and progress bar. We created a test file, mounted the tape drive, wrote the file tape, and checked its contents. We also covered the importance of using tar with pv and progress bar to provide progress information and error handling.