IBMtape vs generic tape drivers on SuSE Linux Enterprise 11

[Pete Stephen]

I have a new install of SuSE Linux Enterprise 11 on Power6 processors. I have three LTO3 drives in a TS3310 library fiber attached. I loaded IBMTape (lin_tape 1.50) and connected my FC cable and rebooted. lin_taped does not start When I try to start it manually /etc/init.d/lin_tape start it does not start. In /var/log/lin_tape.trace I get:
open /dev/IBMtape failed: No such device or address
lin_taped Thu Apr 7 19:01:51 2011
lin_taped terminated.

There is not /dev/IBMtapeX devices. But there IS /dev/stX devices. Using yast I see these devices (with the correct WWNs of my tape drives). SO is IBMtape mutually exclusive with SuSE Linux tape device drivers?? I think I should use IBMtape, but it will not start. Do I delete /dev/stX and try again?? I cannot find any documentation from IBM on this situation. But it seems like it would be pretty common. Thanks for any pointers, suggestions or guidance.


│ ├┬─ULT3580-TD3 (/dev/st0) ┬
│ │├──Bus: SCSI │
│ │├──Class (spec): Tape │
│ │├──Class: Mass storage device ┴
│ │├──Device Name: /dev/st0 │
│ │├┬─Device Names │
│ ││├──/dev/st0 │
│ ││├──/dev/tape/by-id/scsi-3500308c09a43c094 │
│ ││└──/dev/tape/by-path/pci-0001:c0:01.0-fc-0x500308c09a43c095:0x000000000│

[Pete Stephen]

With luck and a bit of digging I resolved my problem with the IBMTape lin_tape device drivers. lin_tape did not work becuase the rpmbuild process (which is documented in the IBM Tape Device Driver Guide), completed and built the rpm file, BUT the rpmbuild actually failed with the following error: '/lib/modules/2.6.32.12-0.7-ppc64/kernel/drivers/scsi/lin_tape.ko' is unsupported.

The IBM Tape Device Driver Guide (and IBM support) had no indication of what to do. But I found that if you set
allow_unsupported_modules 1
in the file /etc/modprobe.d/unsupported-modules
the rpmbuild will complete sucessfully (even tho the ibm lin_tape.ko file is "unsupported").

Now it works.... Hope this helps someone else avoid the frustration I went through on this.

[adsmsuser]

hm.
just ran into the same issue:

myserver:/home/isntall/lin_taped/1.73.0 # /etc/init.d/lin_tape start
Starting lin_tape: FATAL: module '/lib/modules/3.0.13-0.27-default/kernel/drivers/scsi/lin_tape.ko' is unsupported
Use --allow-unsupported or set allow_unsupported_modules to 1 in

but i am not shure if i should do this because:
# Every kernel module has a flag 'supported'. If this flag is not set loading
# this module will taint your kernel. You will not get much help with a kernel
# problem if your kernel is marked as tainted. In this case you firstly have
# to avoid loading of unsupported modules.

on a test system: why not, but in production environement. there sould be a better solution, i hope