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rmt(8)

NAME

     rmt -- remote magtape protocol module

SYNOPSIS

     rmt

DESCRIPTION

     The rmt utility is used by the remote dump and restore programs in manip-
     ulating a magnetic tape drive through an interprocess communication con-
     nection.  It is normally started up with an rexec(3) or rcmd(3) call.

     The rmt utility accepts requests specific to the manipulation of magnetic
     tapes, performs the commands, then responds with a status indication.
     All responses are in ASCII and in one of two forms.  Successful commands
     have responses of:

	   Anumber\n

     Number is an ASCII representation of a decimal number.  Unsuccessful com-
     mands are responded to with:

	   Eerror-number\nerror-message\n

     Error-number is one of the possible error numbers described in intro(2)
     and error-message is the corresponding error string as printed from a
     call to perror(3).  The protocol is comprised of the following commands,
     which are sent as indicated - no spaces are supplied between the command
     and its arguments, or between its arguments, and `\n' indicates that a
     newline should be supplied:

     Odevice\nmode\n
	     Open the specified device using the indicated mode.  Device is a
	     full pathname and mode is an ASCII representation of a decimal
	     number suitable for passing to open(2).  If a device had already
	     been opened, it is closed before a new open is performed.

     Cdevice\n
	     Close the currently open device.  The device specified is
	     ignored.

     Lwhence\noffset\n
	     Perform an lseek(2) operation using the specified parameters.
	     The response value is that returned from the lseek(2) call.

     Wcount\n
	     Write data onto the open device.  The rmt utility reads count
	     bytes from the connection, aborting if a premature end-of-file is
	     encountered.  The response value is that returned from the
	     write(2) call.

     Rcount\n
	     Read count bytes of data from the open device.  If count exceeds
	     the size of the data buffer (10 kilobytes), it is truncated to
	     the data buffer size.  The rmt utility then performs the
	     requested read(2) and responds with Acount-read\n if the read was
	     successful; otherwise an error in the standard format is
	     returned.	If the read was successful, the data read is then

     S	     Return the status of the open device, as obtained with a MTIOCGET
	     ioctl(2) call.  If the operation was successful, an ``ack'' is
	     sent with the size of the status buffer, then the status buffer
	     is sent (in binary).

     Any other command causes rmt to exit.

DIAGNOSTICS

     All responses are of the form described above.

SEE ALSO

     rcmd(3), rexec(3), mtio(4), rdump(8), rrestore(8)

BUGS

     People should be discouraged from using this for a remote file access
     protocol.

HISTORY

     The rmt utility appeared in 4.2BSD.

FreeBSD 5.4			 June 1, 1994			   FreeBSD 5.4

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