jepeway@utkcs2.cs.utk.edu (08/04/87)
Folk have asked for a summary of the responses received to the query about how to get the status of a tape drive when it's in use. You can't, it seems, unless you call the tape driver your own self. This from David S. Hayes <hqda-ai!merlin@mimsy.umd.edu> Basically, you're stuck. mt fails because of the way it must work. Magtape status is determined with the aid of an ioctl. ioctl's are issued against file descriptors, which means you must first open(2) the tape drive in order to be able to execute the ioctl. You can't open the tape drive, though, 'cause someone else has it. DEC's software support people are looking into this problem for us, so there's hope yet that you can ask the drive how it's doing. Maybe Ultrix 2.0 will fix things. C. Jepeway