I just thought I'd give a reply to this issue saying how I resolved it.

I really wanted to stick with the open source st drivers and not use the IBM 
specific drivers that one user suggested I do.  I purchased a new SAS card from 
LSI.  My hunch was really only that the Adaptec SAS drivers that were released 
by Adaptec had some drama on the kernel.org mailing list associated with them 
and that prompted someone else to make a different driver that followed 
standards more closely than the Adaptec created one.  That and an issue with 
loading firmware while booting was somewhat of a strange mystery to me.  Even 
though I got that working, it still didn't play well it seams.

Now with this LSI LSISAS3801X card:
http://www.lsi.com/storage_home/products_home/host_bus_adapters/sas_hbas/lsisas3801x/index.html

Everything worked perfectly.  I'm going to continue my setup of Bacula and 
chime in with a status report.  So far so good.  Seems like this TS2900 didn't 
like the Adaptec SAS 58300.

Thanks for all of your help.

Michael



----- Original Message ----
From: Michael Kahle <gnunix AT yahoo DOT com>
To: Bacula Users <bacula-users AT lists.sourceforge DOT net>
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2008 1:13:14 PM
Subject: [Bacula-users] No tar for my tape drive!?!? SAS tape library help...

Any help here would be wonderful.  tar will not work on my tape drive!  
Weirdness...  Here is some background.

I recently purchased a new IBM TS2900 Autoloader:
http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/storage/tape/ts2900/index.html

I have hooked up this via an Adaptec SAS 58300:
http://www.adaptec.com/en-US/support/sas/sas/SAS-58300/

After some rough patches getting the Adaptec card to even work.  I built a 
custom kernel (2.6.27.4)
with support for this card.  I also upgraded my backup system to lenny
because I needed some new functionality out of initramfs to load the
firmware for this card.

> cat /proc/scsi/scsi
Attached devices:
Host: scsi2 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00
  Vendor: IBM      Model: ULT3580-HH4      Rev: 85V8
  Type:   Sequential-Access                ANSI  SCSI revision: 03
Host: scsi2 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 01
  Vendor: IBM      Model: 3572-TL          Rev: 0003
  Type:   Medium Changer                   ANSI  SCSI revision: 03

> lsscsi
[2:0:0:0]    tape    IBM      ULT3580-HH4      85V8  /dev/st0
[2:0:0:1]    mediumx IBM      3572-TL          0003  /dev/sch0

So far so good.

> mtx -f /dev/sg3 status shows:
  Storage Changer /dev/sg3:1 Drives, 9 Slots ( 0 Import/Export )
Data Transfer Element 0:Empty
      Storage Element 1:Full :VolumeTag=389ADOL4
      Storage Element 2:Full :VolumeTag=385ADOL4
      Storage Element 3:Full :VolumeTag=386ADOL4
      Storage Element 4:Empty
      Storage Element 5:Full :VolumeTag=387ADOL4
      Storage Element 6:Empty
      Storage Element 7:Full :VolumeTag=388ADOL4
      Storage Element 8:Empty
      Storage Element 9:Full :VolumeTag=CLNU94L1

Very nice.  Let's move a tape into the drive.

> mtx -f /dev/sg3 load 2
Loading media from Storage Element 2 into drive 0...done

Ok.  Now lets rewind the tape.

> mt -f /dev/nst0 rewind

No errors.  Good.  Do we have a tape in the drive?  Let's make sure.

> mt -f /dev/nst0 status
SCSI 2 tape drive:
File number=0, block number=0, partition=0.
Tape block size 0 bytes. Density code 0x46 (LTO-4).
Soft error count since last status=0
General status bits on (41010000):
BOT ONLINE IM_REP_EN

Looks good.  Time for a sample backup.

> cd /backup/scripts
> ls -l
total 44
-rwxr--r-- 1 root root  623 2006-11-14 03:14 backup2tape.sh
-rwxr--r-- 1 root root 1862 2007-02-06 15:43 backupMichael.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 6763 2007-10-18 23:58 backupNetwork.sh
-rwx------ 1 root root 3824 2008-08-26 20:36 backupNetworkTemp.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1035 2008-01-01 20:03 backupVantageYE.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  752 2006-10-24 19:18 exclude
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   15 2005-12-14 18:57 logs -> /var/log/backup
-rwx------ 1 root root 7137 2008-10-04 19:41 newNetworkBackup.sh
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 2413 2007-01-04 00:04 testBackupCapitol.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  874 2005-12-09 21:10 z_backupall
> tar cvf /dev/nst0 . 
./
./exclude
./logs
./z_backupall
./backup2tape.sh
./backupNetwork.sh
tar: /dev/nst0: Cannot write: Invalid argument
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now

HUH?  What happened?

> dmesg | tail
st0: Sense Key : Aborted Command [current] 
st0: Add. Sense: Initiator response timeout
st0: Can't set default compression.

> tail /var/log/syslog
Oct 31 13:01:51 backup kernel: st0: Sense Key : Aborted Command [current] 
Oct 31 13:01:51 backup kernel: st0: Add. Sense: Initiator response timeout
Oct 31 13:01:51 backup kernel: st0: Can't set default compression.

Any
thoughts on this?  Is there some kind of SAS module I need to have
installed?  I should be able to use this SAS device just as I use any
other SCSI device, correct?

Thanks for your time.

Michael


      

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge
Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great prizes
Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world
http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/
_______________________________________________
Bacula-users mailing list
Bacula-users AT lists.sourceforge DOT net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users



      

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge
Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great prizes
Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world
http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/
_______________________________________________
Bacula-users mailing list
Bacula-users AT lists.sourceforge DOT net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users