Tape device modes and logical devices
The tape device driver supports up to 128 physical tape devices. Each physical tape device can be used as a character device in non-rewinding or in rewinding mode.
In non-rewinding mode, the tape remains at the current position when the device is closed. In rewinding mode, the tape is rewound when the device is closed. The tape device driver treats each mode as a separate logical device.
Both modes provide sequential (traditional) tape access without any caching done in the kernel.
You can use a channel-attached tape device in the same way as any other Linux® tape device. You can write to it and read from it using standard Linux facilities such as GNU tar. You can perform control operations (such as rewinding the tape or skipping a file) with the standard tool mt.