LTO Tape/6

Don't trust this information.

LTO-6 SAS Drive is assumed to be used (for now).

Links:

https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/3qfyhm/how_to_start_using_an_lto6_tape_backup_drive_with/cyxpzo5/ https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/3qfyhm/how_to_start_using_an_lto6_tape_backup_drive_with/ https://www.quantum.com/serviceandsupport/softwareanddocumentationdownloads/ltfs/index.aspx?whattab=Third https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/STQNYL_2.2.2/ltfs_reference_tools_linux.html

Drive

LTO5 and up support LTFS. But all support Tar and BareOS.

LTO Tape Drive support is part of the mainline Linux kernel through the `st` module thanks to contributions from IBM, so no drivers are actually needed for a tape drive to work.

To check to see that a tape drive is accessible, first check that /dev/tape/by-id exists and contains an nst0 device. If so, the Linux kernel already detected your tape drive and no further drivers are necessary. As for software though...

Backup Software

Backup Software determine the format of the data being pushed to the tape. We will only describe open source software available at no cost, because if you are an actual enterprise willing to pay big bucks stop reading this guide and start calling your IBM sales rep to purchase IBM Spectrum Protect(tm).

Tar (Simplest)

See LTO Tape

LTFS (Medium)

Build from the upstream IBM source code rather than using vendor source code, which sucks. A handy source rpm is provided.

https://github.com/LinearTapeFileSystem/ltfs/wiki

https://github.com/piste2750/rpm-ltfs

https://fedoramagazine.org/how-rpm-packages-are-made-the-source-rpm/

https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/8/html/packaging_and_distributing_software/packaging-software_packaging-and-distributing-software#building-source-rpms

All commands should be done as normal unprivileged user: the sudo commands are elevated to root.

In RHEL/CentOS 8, install the dependencies:

sudo dnf install rpm-build rpmdevtools

First, create the rpmbuild setuptree in your home directory.

rpmdev-setuptree

Download this .spec file, and place it into ~/rpmbuild/SPECS/ltfs.spec. Then run the following src.rpm packaging command.

rpmbuild -bb ~/rpmbuild/SPECS/ltfs.spec

Install the dependencies needed to build the source rpm.

sudo dnf builddep ~/rpmbuild/SRPMS/ltfs-2.4.1.2-10254.src.rpm

Build an rpm from a .src.rpm file:

rpmbuild --rebuild ~/rpmbuild/SRPMS/ltfs-2.4.1.2-10254.src.rpm

Now the rpms can be installed

cd ~/rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64
sudo dnf localinstall ltfs-2.4.1.2-10254.x86_64.rpm  ltfs-debuginfo-2.4.1.2-10254.x86_64.rpm  ltfs-debugsource-2.4.1.2-10254.x86_64.rpm

BareOS (Enterprise)

Not an operating system, but "Backup Archiving REcovery Open Sourced" with tape as one key storage backend. It was forked from Bacula. Does not require LTFS.

https://www.bareos.org/en/