CentOS - Sep 2005 - Cookbook receipe for SCSI tape install requested.

I need to install an HP Surestore dlt on a Centos 4 machine and I 
am at a loss as to how to proceed.  Can someone either provide or 
point me to an online reference on how to proceed to add and 
configure a SCSI adapter and tape drive.  I have read, but not 
really understood, the man page entry for st.  Does kudzu handle 
this?

Regards,
Jim

I am a digest subscriber so the favour of an additional direct 
reply is desired.

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James B. Byrne                Harte & Lyne Limited
vox: +1 905 561 1241          9 Brockley Drive
fax: +1 905 561 0757          Hamilton, Ontario
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On Tue, Sep 06, 2005 at 02:36:27PM -0400, James B. Byrne
wrote:
> I need to install an HP Surestore dlt on a Centos 4 machine and I 
> am at a loss as to how to proceed.  Can someone either provide or 
> point me to an online reference on how to proceed to add and 
> configure a SCSI adapter and tape drive.  I have read, but not 
> really understood, the man page entry for st.  Does kudzu handle 
> this?
> 
> Regards,
> Jim
> 
> I am a digest subscriber so the favour of an additional direct 
> reply is desired.
1) Install tape drive
2) Read the mt man page
3) Access the drive using either /dev/nst0 or /dev/st0

Thats all.

There is really no configuration needed, unless you want to setup
compression values and such.

Gotta love SCSI.

[]s

- -- 
Rodrigo Barbosa <rodrigob at suespammers.org>
"Quid quid Latine dictum sit, altum viditur"
"Be excellent to each other ..." - Bill & Ted (Wyld Stallyns)

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James B. Byrne wrote:
> I need to install an HP Surestore dlt on a Centos 4 machine and I 
> am at a loss as to how to proceed.  Can someone either provide or 
> point me to an online reference on how to proceed to add and 
> configure a SCSI adapter and tape drive.  I have read, but not 
> really understood, the man page entry for st.  Does kudzu handle 
> this?
> 
> Regards,
> Jim
> 
The tape drive should work out of the box, as long as your scsi adapter
is supported.

Connect your drive to the server, boot and look at the boot messages.
You can always do a 'dmesg' afterwards.  You should see your tape
detected there (or not).

Then, you can use mt to manipulate the tape, but to do backups, you're
more likely to use tar, cpio, or even mondorescue.
> I am a digest subscriber so the favour of an additional direct 
> reply is desired.
> 
> --   
>      *** e-mail is not a secure channel ***
> mailto:byrnejb.<token>@harte-lyne.ca
> James B. Byrne                Harte & Lyne Limited
> vox: +1 905 561 1241          9 Brockley Drive
> fax: +1 905 561 0757          Hamilton, Ontario
> <token> = hal                 Canada L8E 3C3

-- 
Ugo

-> Please don't send a copy of your reply by e-mail.  I read the list.
-> Please avoid top-posting, long signatures and HTML, and cut the
irrelevant parts in your replies.

On 6 Sep 2005 at 16:35, Rodrigo Barbosa wrote:
> 1) Install tape drive
> 2) Read the mt man page
> 3) Access the drive using either /dev/nst0 or /dev/st0
> 
> Thats all.
> 
> There is really no configuration needed, unless you want to setup
> compression values and such.
If it were only true.  There is no such device as /dev/st0 or 
anything else having to do with scsi in /dev on this system.  Kudzu 
sees the scsi adapter but does not ask to configure it. So how does 
one tell CentOS4 that the adapter exists?  Do I have to manually 
tell the kernel to load a particular module?  If so how and which 
one?

Regards,
Jim

--   
     *** e-mail is not a secure channel ***
mailto:byrnejb.<token>@harte-lyne.ca
James B. Byrne                Harte & Lyne Limited
vox: +1 905 561 1241          9 Brockley Drive
fax: +1 905 561 0757          Hamilton, Ontario
<token> = hal                 Canada L8E 3C3

On Tue, 2005-09-06 at 22:54 -0400, James B. Byrne wrote:
> On 6 Sep 2005 at 18:13, Rodrigo Barbosa wrote:
> 
> > You will have to select the correct module for your controler, and
> > configure it (/etc/modprobe.conf). lspci might give you the
information
> > you need to get started.
> 
> Perhaps I am using the wrong terminology for my request.  I am 
> seeking assistance in configuring linux to recognize and use a scsi 
> tape drive.  The scsi controller was added to this system for the 
> sole purpose of supporting the tape unit long after the os was 
> loaded.  I do not know how to tell the linux kernel to select and 
> load the necessary module to access the scsi controller and thence 
> the tape drive.  That is why I sought a cookbook solution to this 
> problem. There must be somewhere, a well defined series of steps that 
> one goes through to identify, select, and configure the appropriate 
> module for a specific scsi adapter.  I lack this knowledge and this 
> is what I seek.
> 
> lspci yields this: 
> 
> 05:04.0 SCSI storage controller: Initio Corporation 360P (rev 02)
> 
> /etc/modeprobe.conf contains this:
> 
> alias eth0 e100
> alias snd-card-0 snd-intel8x0
> options snd-card-0 index=0
> install snd-intel8x0 /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-intel8x0
&&
> /usr/sbin/alsactl restore >/dev/null 2>&1 || :
> remove snd-intel8x0 { /usr/sbin/alsactl store >/dev/null 2>&1 ||
: ;
> }; /sbin/modprobe -r --ignore-remove snd-intel8x0
> alias usb-controller ehci-hcd
> alias usb-controller1 uhci-hcd
> 
> SO. What do 	I put into modprobe.conf to get the system to recognize 
> the scsi controller?  Is there a utility to detect and do this?  I 
> appreciate all the assistance but I need a more basic, step by step, 
> explanation of how to go about this.
Jim-

If you run kudzu (Redhat's hardware config utility) by hand as root,
does it see the card and attempt to configure it? kudzu should generate
the proper magic in /etc/sysconfig/hwconf and in /etc/modprobe.conf.
Based on a quick google, this should be supported by the initio module.

If kudzu fails to do the magic, try

modprobe initio

You could also add an entry to /etc/modprobe.conf 

alias scsi_hostadapter initio

modprobe scsi_hostadapter

-- 
Sean

On Tue, Sep 06, 2005 at 10:54:57PM -0400, James B. Byrne  enlightened
us:
> > You will have to select the correct module for your controler, and
> > configure it (/etc/modprobe.conf). lspci might give you the
information
> > you need to get started.
> 
> Perhaps I am using the wrong terminology for my request.  I am 
> seeking assistance in configuring linux to recognize and use a scsi 
> tape drive.  The scsi controller was added to this system for the 
> sole purpose of supporting the tape unit long after the os was 
> loaded.  I do not know how to tell the linux kernel to select and 
> load the necessary module to access the scsi controller and thence 
> the tape drive.  That is why I sought a cookbook solution to this 
> problem. There must be somewhere, a well defined series of steps that 
> one goes through to identify, select, and configure the appropriate 
> module for a specific scsi adapter.  I lack this knowledge and this 
> is what I seek.
> 
> lspci yields this: 
> 
> 05:04.0 SCSI storage controller: Initio Corporation 360P (rev 02)
> 
> /etc/modeprobe.conf contains this:
> 
> alias eth0 e100
> alias snd-card-0 snd-intel8x0
> options snd-card-0 index=0
> install snd-intel8x0 /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-intel8x0
&&
> /usr/sbin/alsactl restore >/dev/null 2>&1 || :
> remove snd-intel8x0 { /usr/sbin/alsactl store >/dev/null 2>&1 ||
: ;
> }; /sbin/modprobe -r --ignore-remove snd-intel8x0
> alias usb-controller ehci-hcd
> alias usb-controller1 uhci-hcd
> 
> SO. What do 	I put into modprobe.conf to get the system to recognize 
> the scsi controller?  Is there a utility to detect and do this?  I 
> appreciate all the assistance but I need a more basic, step by step, 
> explanation of how to go about this.
> 
> Regards,
> Jim
Try "modprobe initio" to see if that is the correct driver for your
card.
You can run "dmesg" after the modprobe to see the results of the
module
being loaded. If you see something along the lines of 

SCSI subsystem driver Revision: 1.00
scsi0 : Adaptec AIC7XXX EISA/VLB/PCI SCSI HBA DRIVER, Rev 6.2.36
        <Adaptec 3960D Ultra160 SCSI adapter>
        aic7899: Ultra160 Wide Channel A, SCSI Id=7, 32/253 SCBs

You'll know it loaded. Of course youse will make reference to Initio, not
Adaptec, but you get the idea. If that works, then you should be able to add
the following line to /etc/modprobe.conf:

alias scsi_hostadapter initio

If that doesn't work, you'll have to track down the right module for
your
card. Google is your friend there...

Matt

-- 
Matt Hyclak
Department of Mathematics 
Department of Social Work
Ohio University
(740) 593-1263

On Tue, 2005-09-06 at 21:54, James B. Byrne wrote:
> Perhaps I am using the wrong terminology for my request.  I am 
> seeking assistance in configuring linux to recognize and use a scsi 
> tape drive.  The scsi controller was added to this system for the 
> sole purpose of supporting the tape unit long after the os was 
> loaded.  I do not know how to tell the linux kernel to select and 
> load the necessary module to access the scsi controller and thence 
> the tape drive.  That is why I sought a cookbook solution to this 
> problem. There must be somewhere, a well defined series of steps that 
> one goes through to identify, select, and configure the appropriate 
> module for a specific scsi adapter.  I lack this knowledge and this 
> is what I seek.
Running kudzu should pick this up for you, but normally that runs
on every reboot so I'm not sure why it isn't already done.

> lspci yields this: 
> 
> 05:04.0 SCSI storage controller: Initio Corporation 360P (rev 02)
> 
> /etc/modeprobe.conf contains this:
> 
> alias eth0 e100
> alias snd-card-0 snd-intel8x0
> options snd-card-0 index=0
> install snd-intel8x0 /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-intel8x0
&&
> /usr/sbin/alsactl restore >/dev/null 2>&1 || :
> remove snd-intel8x0 { /usr/sbin/alsactl store >/dev/null 2>&1 ||
: ;
> }; /sbin/modprobe -r --ignore-remove snd-intel8x0
> alias usb-controller ehci-hcd
> alias usb-controller1 uhci-hcd
> 
> SO. What do 	I put into modprobe.conf to get the system to recognize 
> the scsi controller?  Is there a utility to detect and do this?  I 
> appreciate all the assistance but I need a more basic, step by step, 
> explanation of how to go about this.
alias scsi_hostadapter initio
seems likely.

-- 
  Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com

On Tue, 2005-09-06 at 22:54 -0400, James B. Byrne wrote:
> Perhaps I am using the wrong terminology for my request.  I am 
> seeking assistance in configuring linux to recognize and use a scsi 
> tape drive.  The scsi controller was added to this system for the 
> sole purpose of supporting the tape unit long after the os was 
> loaded.  I do not know how to tell the linux kernel to select and 
     1. Whoever added the SCSI controller to the system should be able
        to tell you Brand/Model of the card and also the chipset used by
        the controller.  This info will help you identify which SCSI
        module to load.  IMO, this is your fastest way to solve the
        problem.  If your SCSI card happens to be supported by Linux
        (see hardware compatibility list) then you know the card is
        dead.
     2. Also, if this SCSI controller has a BIOS, then at boot time you
        should be able to invoke the SCSI devices configuration and see
        if the tape device is listed.  It is an indication that the tape
        unit and the SCSI card have established communication.

HTH
-- 
Arun Khan
Linux is like a wigwam - no gates, no windows, apache inside