Networker

Re: [Networker] sg driver versus Adaptec?

2004-01-12 17:12:01
Subject: Re: [Networker] sg driver versus Adaptec?
From: Tim Mooney <mooney AT DOGBERT.CC.NDSU.NODAK DOT EDU>
To: NETWORKER AT LISTMAIL.TEMPLE DOT EDU
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 16:11:56 -0600
In regard to: [Networker] sg driver versus Adaptec?, George Sinclair said...:

>In regards to my earlier posting: "SCSI problems -- How many drives to a
>bus", there were several replies about the sg driver and what version we
>were running. We are running the latest one (30124) for the 2.4.20
>kernel, but I have to ask this really dump question here: Should we be
>using the Adaptec driver?

The "SCSI Generic" driver isn't a "here's how you talk to vendor X's SCSI
HBA", it's an adapter-neutral "shim" that sits at a slightly
higher level than drivers for a particular HBA.

You almost certainly are using the Adaptec driver, you can check via

        lsmod

assuming you're using the standard modular kernel.  It will almost
certainly show up as an aix<something> module.  There will very likely
be higher level scsi modules that depend on that driver.

The sg driver can be used to talk to SCSI (and in some cases non-SCSI)
devices for which there isn't a more specific driver (like the sd_mod
for SCSI disks).  One particular case on Linux where this might happen
is jukebox devices.

People (myself included) brought up the SCSI generic driver because there
are a lot of good tools that use the API it provides to query devices and
do other things.  Even though you have an aic<something> card in the
system, you may want to do some debugging using the sg utilities.

Of course, being up to date with the AIC drivers is also important.  If
you do

        cat /proc/scsi/aix*/0

what driver version does it show?

Are you up to date on machine BIOS and SCSI card (even if onboard) BIOS?

Tim
--
Tim Mooney                              mooney AT dogbert.cc.ndsu.NoDak DOT edu
Information Technology Services         (701) 231-1076 (Voice)
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