Skip to content

mtxbatch - Move (or swap) many tapes in a single command

Generates (and optionally runs) mtx commands to move sets of tapes from one location to another, or to swap tapes in one location with another set of tapes.

Features

  • Preview the list mtx commands that will be run
  • Preserves ordering of tapes in set (by default, can optionally reverse order)
  • Specify tapes as list, a range, or a combination of lists and ranges
  • Specify which slot to use as temporary storage when swapping tapes
  • Handles situations where slots from source location overlap with target location slots

Examples

Print the list of commands to move a batch of tapes from one slot range (1-20) to another (51-60): 

mtxbatch -f /dev/changer move 1-20 51-70

Print the list of commands to move a batch of tapes, AND run the commands as you print them: 

mtxbatch -f /dev/changer move 1-20 51-70 --run

Print a list of commands to move tapes from a list of ranges to another list of ranges: 

mtxbatch -f /dev/changer move 1-5,8,10-14 51-61

Print a list of command to swap tapes in one range with tapes in another range, also specifying the empty slot to use while swapping: 

mtxbatch -f /dev/changer swap 6-10 21-25 --use-empty 40

Print commands to swap a list of tapes in one range with another range, and reverse the order of tapes when swapping them: 

mtxbatch -f /dev/changer swap 6-10 21-25 --use-empty 40 --reverse

Run command to move a range of tapes to another range, but suppress printing out the commands being run: 

mtxbatch -f /dev/changer move 1-20 51-70 --run --quiet

Command Use

mtxbatch -f <changer-device> command SOURCE TARGET [flags]

-f <changer-device> This specifies the tape changer which will be passed on to the mtx command's -f flag.

command This can be either move or swap. The move commmand will transfer all tapes from the SOURCE slots to the TARGET slots. The swap command will transfer all the tapes from SOURCE slots over to TARGET slots, and will also transfer all tapes from the TARGET slots back into the SOURCE slots.

Flags:

  • --use-empty Only used when performing the swap command. This flags takes a slot number argument where it will temporarily place tapes while swapping. The slot number specified must be empty.
  • --allow-empty When moving or swapping tapes, preserve any empty slots included in the command. i.e. The empty slot is "moved" as well.
  • --reverse Reverses tape order (first becomes last, last becomes first) while moving tapes; for the swap command, it will reverse both SOURCE and TARGET tape sets. This also works when specifying a list of tape slots/ranges for either SOURCE or TARGET.
  • --reverse-source Similar to --reverse, but only the SOURCE tapes are reversed when using the swap command.
  • --reverse-target Similar to --reverse, but only the TARGET tapes are reversed when using the swap command.
  • --run This will have mtxbatch attempt to run each command rather than just print them to stdout.
  • --quiet This will suppress the printing of commands to stdout.
  • --skip-run-checks Do not perform validity checks before attempting to run mtx commands.

Written by Nathan Collins (npcollins/gmail/com)

Copyright © Michigan State University Board of Trustees

Released under the Apache License 2.0