Determine tape drive serial number, RHEL. (from cli for script purposes)

[Adam Garsha]

Does anyone know a way to grok a scsi_tape drive serial number from a linux shell? I've looked around in /sys/class/scsi_tape, etc. and I don't see it anywhere. scsi_id seems to work only with drives? Wondering how I can get that information.

Dataprotector's "devbra --list_devices" is able to poll/show the info, but I am wondering if there is a core linux command or trick or standard linux tool that I can use to figure it out (should I not have DP installed on a given node).

Much thanks.

[Torsten.]

I'm not really sure about such "native" command.

But if you have a HP tape drive, you should have HP library and tape tools (LTT) too.

You can use this tool from CLI, example:

Example

hp_ltt -f scan

This command produces the following output in a file named saved_scan.txt in the current folder:

2/0.4.0:HP:Ultrium 3-SCSI:G54D

From this output, the device hardware path is:

2/0.4.0

For each device L&TT finds during the scan there will be a corresponding entry in this file

You can review the help file, get the options you really need and after running the tool grep for your values or just pipe the results to your script.

[Adam Garsha · Accepted solution]

Looks like scsi_id is what I was looking for. Sadly, it doesn't seem to work with my older EML 103e, with the LTO3 drives, but works fine with LTO4 drives:

scsi_id -a -p 0x80 -g -s /class/scsi_tape/nst2

SHP     Ultrium 4-SCSI HU10139JF1

I'll see if I can figure out what the deal is with the other library's drives. They aren't THAT old, wondering if since they are in use currently they aren't giving up the goods.

The scsi_id command will send an INQUIRY to the scsi device. I found these links interesting and they solved half my problem:

http://www.backupcentral.com/phpBB2/two-way-mirrors-of-external-mailing-lists-3/emc-networker-19/persistent-binding-in-linux-96923/

http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E21429_01/en/CRCM2526/CRCM2526.pdf (page 50-ish)