
NAME

  dkt tape-set    - Tape set management
  dkt tape        - Tape management
  dkt tape-report - Report backup media use.

SYNOPSIS

  dkt tape-set    get|confirm [<option(s)>] <file>
  dkt tape        get|confirm [<option(s)>] <file>
  dkt tape-report [<options>] <file>

DESCRIPTION

The program can be used for backup media management.

A backup set is a group of files/directories written together to one
backup media.
For each backup set there is a corresponding media set (tape set) of
10 backup media (tapes, CD-RWs, DVD-RWs...).

In a cycle of 200 backups each of the media is used 20 times. Order of
media usage varies, so we some backups of the last few days and some older
backups at each time. The rotation scheme is known as "10 tape rotation scheme"
in the literature.

On a computer you might have different backup sets (i.e. one set "A" for the
configuration files and another set "B" for user home directories).
We can write a tape set file "tapeset.txt" listing the order of backup sets.
To back up A once a week and B four times a week we write

A B B B B

Now we can use

  dkt tape-set get tapeset.txt

to find the current tape set.
The program writes the name of the current set to standard output.
After doing a backup successfully we use

  dkt tape-set confirm tapeset.txt

to confirm the backup. The file is rewritten, number of the next set index
is in the second line.

If we want to find the current tape number for set A we use

  dkt tape get tape-A.txt

The program writes the number to standard output. If the file "tape-A.txt"
does not yet exist the program assumes no backup was made yet for this set.
After doing a backup successfully we use

  dkt tape confirm tape-A.txt

to confirm the backup. The file is rewritten, the number of the next tape
and the usage date for the current tape are updated.

The

  dkt tape-report tape-A.txt

command lists the backup media numbers by last confirmation timestamp.

OPTIONS

-R
	skips all settings from dkt.conf configuration files.

-f encoding
	sets up the default file encoding. This encoding is used if no
	byte order marker is found at the beginning of the file.

-p
	shortcut for "-i ascii".

-a
	use ASCII encoding when printing set name or media number
	to standard output (only tape and tapeset commands).

RETURN VALUE

The program returns 0 on success, any other value indicates an error.

AUTHOR

Dirk Krause

HISTORY

The "dkt tape" and "dkt tape-set" functions replace the tape program from
previous dktools versions.

