lto4_loop

#!/bin/bash
# a script which performs a mass data dump of the contents of an LTO-4 tape formatted as a series of tar archives with a data block size of 256k by fast-forwarding the tape to identify the last file before the end of tape, then rewinding and sequentially downloading each file until that point  

sudo mt -f /dev/nst0 eod
sudo mt -f "/dev/nst0" status
num=$( sudo mt -f "/dev/nst0" status | grep number | cut -d , -f 1 )
echo $num
sudo mt -f /dev/nst0 rewind
sudo mt -f "/dev/nst0" status
var=$( sudo mt -f "/dev/nst0" status | grep "$num")
until [ "$var" ]; do
    sudo dd if=/dev/nst0 ibs=256k obs=10k conv=sync | tar -xvf -
    sudo mt -f "/dev/nst0" fsf 1
    sudo mt -f "/dev/nst0" status
    var=$( sudo mt -f "/dev/nst0" status | grep "$num")
done