Re: SAVxxx TAPES: undoubtfully identifying NOT-local origin (e.g. jury Court room)

As others have already noted, the system serial number is stored on the media and appears in the *SAVRST information [and thus also available from DMPTAP; i.e. when "dumping control blocks at the beginning of the tape"].

To avoid creating that output locally in order to see an example, search the text within the page at the following URL for "System serial number", where a sample DSPTAP DATA(*SAVRST) output is shown:
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=nas1c70925fd2270d5a7862571f8005dee84

FWiW I already submitted a comment about the poor formatting of the DSPTAP output in that KB article; i.e. for not being representative of the command output, as it obviously intends.

Regards, Chuck

Antonio Fernandez-Vicenti wrote:

<<SNIP>>
Nevertheless, we (customer a myself) are quite surprised: AS/400, iSeries, i5 ... such a powerful beast... Journals of all
kinds, HA programs (MIMIX, etc) and so many good things, ... and
something so "basic" as to identify the System's SYSNAME / MachineSerialNo when you do a SAVxxx is not kept anywhere!!! As
mentioned, we shall reconsider checksum, hash, php, ... but this
should be "in addition to"... Anybody can give me a reason why
writing SYSNAME/Machine SerialNo. to the first few tape blocks
would be a bad idea? So many years since S/38 was born, I had
never thought tapes were ALL UNidentified , as per their origin!

El 14/04/2010 18:05, Antonio Fernandez-Vicenti escribió:

Assume you have several iSeries systems. Some has stolen one of
your tapes with LIBxxx objects (files, etc). Restores it to a
different system. Modifies some / much of the data, then does a
SAVLIB.

If the case arrives, ... Can you positively, strictly, identify
that tape as being NOT-one-of-ours-for-sure?

e.g., by means of dumping control blocks at the beginning of
the tape, or any other similar ways. I guess System's SYSNAME
or SerialNo. are not kept in the tape's data control blocks.
And, even if it is, can you strictly prove
"it-is-NOT-our-tape"?