.\" Copyright (c) 1996
.\"	Mike Pritchard <mpp@FreeBSD.org>.  All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 1983, 1991, 1993
.\"	The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
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.\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
.\"    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
.\"    without specific prior written permission.
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.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
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.\"     @(#)mtio.4	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/5/93
.\" $FreeBSD: src/share/man/man4/mtio.4,v 1.8.2.6 2001/08/17 13:08:38 ru Exp $
.\"
.Dd March 5, 2005
.Dt MTIO 4
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm mtio
.Nd magtape interface
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The special files
named
.Pa /dev/[nr]sa*
refer to SCSI tape drives,
which may be attached to the system.
.Pa /dev/[nr]sa*.ctl
are control devices that can be used to issue ioctls to the SCSI
tape driver to set parameters that are required to last beyond the
unmounting of a tape.
.Pp
The rewind devices automatically rewind
when the last requested read, write or seek has finished, or the end of the tape
has been reached.
The letter
.Ql n
is usually prepended to
the name of the no-rewind devices.
.Pp
Tapes can be written with either fixed length records or variable length
records.  See
.Xr sa 4
for more information.  Two end-of-file markers mark the end of a tape, and
one end-of-file marker marks the end of a tape file.
If the tape is not to be rewound it is positioned with the
head in between the two tape marks, where the next write
will over write the second end-of-file marker.
.Pp
All of the magtape devices may be manipulated with the
.Xr mt 1
command.
.Pp
A number of
.Xr ioctl 2
operations are available
on raw magnetic tape.
Consult
.In sys/mtio.h
for further information.
.Sh FILES
.Bl -tag -width /dev/[nr]sa* -compact
.It Pa /dev/[nr]sa*
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr mt 1 ,
.Xr tar 1 ,
.Xr sa 4
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm
manual appeared in
.Bx 4.2 .
An i386 version first appeared in
.Fx 2.2 .
.Sh BUGS
The status should be returned in a device independent format.
.Pp
The special file naming should be redone in a consistent and understandable
manner.