Re: [Networker] Troubleshooting a tape drive
2007-08-03 17:52:24
On Aug 3, 2007, at 12:18 PM, Davina Treiber wrote:
Stan,
In the absence of a vendor supplied kernel for this issue, you need
to enter into the true spirit of Linux, and build and install a
patched kernel.
You will need to install the kernel sources RPM. The file you need
to modify will be something like /usr/src/linux/drivers/scsi/st.c.
You will then need to configure and install the kernel for your
system. Probably slightly easier said than done, but at least there
is plenty info on the web about how to configure and build a custom
kernel.
Thanks Davina and Tim. On the basis of Tim's email, I tried to get
the kernel source and modify it. Unfortunately, I have less than a
clue about what I am doing, even with the web page that Tim pointed
me to. Since my manager ("Mr. Red Hat Linux will solve the world's
problems") insisted I use RH Linux instead of Solaris, I will hand
this part of the project to him when he returns from the black hat
conference and have him show me how to do this.
Oddly enough, I think I got it partially working. I can label tapes
without growing too much older. In addition, "nsrjb -C" comes back
with accurate information after about ten minutes, which is slower
then I prefer, but not as slow as I have seen on a heavily loaded
older server I used to have. I also kicked off "nsrjb -U50 -S1" to
set up a cleaning tape (yes, I have it in the first slot) and its
still sitting there after 15 minutes. I can also see that nsrjb will
mount/unmount tapes in all tape four drives, fine now, albeit slow.
I was also able to backup of this Linux server, itself and recover
files from the backup. After mounting a tape, it gave an I/O error on
the tape I manually labeled, but its writing to a tape now that it
labeled on its own after I switched on the auto media management
feature, although the throughput is only around 5-10MB/s, which is
certainly way too slow for direct attached LTO-3 devices. Sigh!
In the meanwhile, I am going to try backing up one of our large
servers to it and see what happens.
--
Stan Horwitz
stan AT temple DOT edu
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