Loading and unloading tapes

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2 LPAR mode z/VM guest

Unload tapes with the mt command. How to load tapes depends on the stacker mode of your tape hardware.

Procedure

Unload tapes by issuing a command of this form:

# mt -f <node> unload

where <node> is one of the character device nodes.

Whether or not you can load tapes from your Linux® instance depends on the stacker mode of your tape hardware. There are three possible modes:

manual: Tapes must always be loaded manually by an operator. You can use the tape390_display command to display a short message on the tape device's display unit when a new tape is required.
automatic: If there is another tape present in the stacker, the tape device automatically loads a new tape when the current tape is expelled. You can load a new tape from Linux by expelling the current tape with the mt command.
system: The tape device loads a tape when instructed from the operating system. From Linux, you can load a tape with the tape390_display command. You cannot use the mt command to load a tape.

To expel a tape from a tape device that can be accessed through a device node /dev/ntibm0, issue:

# mt -f /dev/ntibm0 unload

Assuming that the stacker mode of the tape device is system and that a tape is present in the stacker, you can load a new tape by issuing:

# tape390_display -l "NEW TAPE" /dev/ntibm0

NEW TAPE is a message that is displayed on the tape devices display unit until the tape device receives the next tape movement command.