On Wed, 30 Nov 2005, Tim Mooney wrote:

TM> I'm just taking wild guesses here, but I'm wondering if you need
TM> 
TM> post-install st /sbin/stinit
TM> 
TM> in /etc/modules.conf, but the `mt' is triggering stinit, and that's why
TM> you don't see the problem *after* mt has been run once.

It seems to be related to the block size after all! Although it seems to 
be impossible to set it on the device until a tape has been loaded in it. 
After preparing nst3 with a tape loaded, I ran the following:

sn01:~ # mt -f /dev/nst3 setblk 0
sn01:~ # mt -f /dev/nst2 setblk 0
mt: /dev/nst2: Input/output error

nst2 doesn't have a tape in it, and is thus not accepting any mt commands
until a tape has been loaded. After this little experiment, nst3 could
mount a tape just fine from networker, but nst2 showed the same behavior
as previously mentioned.

So, is there any way to set the block size without mounting a tape first?
It seems like stinit says it has done so, but that doesn't seem to be
correct. And where does it get the 512byte default setting from? Where can
that be set, without affecting other SCSI devices such as disk drives?

//Oscar

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