CPIO backup command in AIX

Copies files to/from an archive storage device. This command is often used to copy files from UNIX to AIX systems. This command will span across multiple tapes. cpio stands for CoPy Input to Output.




Options What it does
-c Writes header information in ascii format for portability across UNIX systems. The message Out of phase--get help is generated when an attempt is made to extract a file not in cpio format OR if the archive tape was written with the -c option. The cpio command doesn't have this option specified when attemping to extract files from the media (eg., cpio -icdumpv < /dev/rmt0)
-r When restoring will prompt for new path/file to restore to
-v List the file name as it's being copied
-i Read from standard input, i.e. keyboard
-u Copies unconditionally. Older file replaces a newer one. Files with older modification times will replace files with newer modification times.
-d Creates directories, if applicable
-t For table of contents
-C1 Performs block I/O in 512 byte blocks, if the block size of the device that wrote the data on the tape was set to 512 bytes. Make sure you read with the same block size. If the block size that the data was written to and about to be read from are two different sizes, this message will be displayed: Cannot read from the specified device