Ultrium 3-SCSI Issue on Centos 5

[yojarmye]

I am having issue with tape on Linux.
when i execute the command
tar tvf /dev/st0 I get the following error.

tar : /dev/st0 : Cannot read : Input/Output Error.
tar : At begining of tape :quitting now.
tar : Error is not recoverable, acuitting now.

INFO:

OS :
LSB Version: :core-3.1-ia32:core-3.1-noarch:graphics-3.1-ia32:graphics-3.1-noarch
Distributor ID: CentOS
Description: CentOS release 5.5 (Final)
Release: 5.5
Codename: Final

I Have checked the drivers , they appear to be fine. please find the output of the following command.
# cat /proc/scsi/scsi
Host: scsi4 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00
Vendor: HP Model: Ultrium 3-SCSI Rev: Q24D
Type: Sequential-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05

# ls /dev/st*
/dev/st0 /dev/st0a /dev/st0l /dev/st0m /dev/stderr /dev/stdin /dev/stdout


# dmesg|grep -i st0
st 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi tape st0
st0: try direct i/o: yes (alignment 512 B)
st0: Block limits 1 - 16777215 bytes.

Thank!!

[yojarmye]

After removing the tape and place it back, running dmesg:

scsi4 : cciss
Vendor: HP Model: Ultrium 3-SCSI Rev: Q24D
Type: Sequential-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05
scsi 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 1
st: Version 20070203, fixed bufsize 32768, s/g segs 256
st 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi tape st0
st0: try direct i/o: yes (alignment 512 B)
st0: Block limits 1 - 16777215 bytes.
st0: Current: sense key: Illegal Request
Add. Sense: Invalid field in cdb

cciss0: unknown unit attention detected
cciss0: unknown unit attention detected
******

there seems to be some problem with the cciss0 driver.

sas card which is installed is: HP Smart Array P212 Controller

# cat /proc/driver/cciss/cciss0
cciss0: HP Smart Array P212 Controller
Board ID: 0x3241103c
Firmware Version: 2.74
IRQ: 90
Logical drives: 0
Current Q depth: 0
Current # commands on controller: 0
Max Q depth since init: 0
Max # commands on controller since init: 1
Max SG entries since init: 16
Sequential access devices: 1

any ideas??

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

You can't hang that tape drive on a raid controller. The connection is right, but the card can't talk properly to the drive.

The drive needs a dedicated scsi controller.

I ran into the same problem on an rx6600 running HP-UX.

The drive showed up but did not work right.

SEP

[yojarmye]

The truth is that I do not think that is the same.
In fact this problem happens to me on time. If I try another tape, I can read and write with "tar" on it without problems.

If the problem you enter on the other link, I would not work with any tape.

I've been searching google, but problems with this type of Ultrium, are solved by adding the following lines to / etc / rc.d / rc.local:

for x in / proc / driver / cciss / cciss [0-9] *
do
echo "engage scsi"> $ x
done

This makes sense?. They do not understand these lines.

[Steven E. Protter]

You are of course entitled to your opinion.

The behavior on Centos is different than HP-UX.

The raid card may be the exact same card if your box is built by HP.

These Ultrium tape drives DO work much better on a dedicated scsi connection. Give it a try, the card is not outrageously expensive.

SEP

[yojarmye]

Therefore, you recommend me target lines:
"
for x in /proc/driver/cciss/cciss[0-9]*
do
echo "engage scsi" > $x
done
"
in /etc/rc.d/rc.local ?

Thanks!!

[yojarmye]

steven, can you confirm that you put in the previous post?

Thanks!!