Red Hat Fedora 2 does not recognize DEC TLZ10 SCSI tape drive

[Geert Van Pamel]

I want to connect a DEC TLZ10 SCSI DDS-3 tape drive to a Pentium II with Red Hat Fedore 2.

I get the following error, but the SCSI device seems to be (partially) recognized by the OS.

mt -t /dev/st0 status
/dev/st0: No such device or address

file /dev/st0
/dev/st0: character special (9/0)

file /dev/nst0
/dev/nst0: character special (9/128)

vi /proc/scsi/scsi
Attached devices:
(empty -- this seems strange!)

vi /etc/sysconfig/hwconf
-
class: TAPE
bus: SCSI
detached: 0
device: st0
driver: ignore
desc: "Dec TLZ10 (C) DEC"
host: 0
id: 5
channel: 0
lun: 0
generic: sg0

dmesg |grep -i scsi
SCSI subsystem initialized
scsi0 : Adaptec AIC7XXX EISA/VLB/PCI SCSI HBA DRIVER, Rev 6.2.36

aic7860: Ultra Single Channel A, SCSI Id=7, 3/253 SCBs
(scsi0:A:5): 10.000MB/s transfers (10.000MHz, offset 15)
Type: Sequential-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Attached scsi tape st0 at scsi0, channel 0, id 5, lun 0
scsi1 : Adaptec AIC7XXX EISA/VLB/PCI SCSI HBA DRIVER, Rev 6.2.36

aic7860: Ultra Single Channel A, SCSI Id=7, 3/253 SCBs
(scsi1:A:5): 10.000MB/s transfers (10.000MHz, offset 15)
Type: Sequential-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Attached scsi tape st0 at scsi1, channel 0, id 5, lun 0

dmesg |grep -i tape
Attached scsi tape st0 at scsi0, channel 0, id 5, lun 0
Attached scsi tape st0 at scsi1, channel 0, id 5, lun 0

(also strange that I get 2 SCSI tapes, and I only have one!)

Can anybody give me an advice?

[Huc_1]

Hello Geert,

Not sure for Fedora 2 .. its been a long time

but if i remember well you should do a

#modprobe st

This should load the module for scsi st tape

also a man st is usefull for more on command that should work with this ...

Tell us if this helped..

enjoy life

Jean-Pierre Huc

[Geert Van Pamel]

I solved one problem by terminating the external SCSI bus. So the spurious tape drive on scsi1 does no longer show up.

dmesg |pg

SCSI subsystem initialized
PCI: Found IRQ 3 for device 0000:00:0e.0
scsi0 : Adaptec AIC7XXX EISA/VLB/PCI SCSI HBA DRIVER, Rev 6.2.36

aic7860: Ultra Single Channel A, SCSI Id=7, 3/253 SCBs

(scsi0:A:5): 10.000MB/s transfers (10.000MHz, offset 15)
Vendor: DEC Model: TLZ10 (C) DEC Rev: 04a8
Type: Sequential-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
st: Version 20040318, fixed bufsize 32768, s/g segs 256
Attached scsi tape st0 at scsi0, channel 0, id 5, lun 0
st0: try direct i/o: yes (alignment 512 B), max page reachable by HBA 1048575

Still it does not work

mt -f /dev/st0 status
/dev/st0: No such device or address

lsmod |grep st
st 31132 0
scsi_mod 91344 2 sg,st

lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 440LX/EX - 82443LX/EX Host bridge (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 440LX/EX - 82443LX/EX AGP bridge (rev 03)
00:07.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ISA (rev 02)
00:07.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01)
00:07.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB (rev 01)
00:07.3 Bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 02)
00:0c.0 Multimedia audio controller: Yamaha Corporation DS1L Audio
00:0d.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8029(AS)
00:0e.0 SCSI storage controller: Adaptec AIC-7861 (rev 03)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc 3D Rage Pro AGP 1X (rev 5c)

lspci -tv
-[0000:00]-+-00.0 Intel Corp. 440LX/EX - 82443LX/EX Host bridge
+-01.0-[0000:01]----00.0 ATI Technologies Inc 3D Rage Pro AGP 1X
+-07.0 Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ISA
+-07.1 Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE
+-07.2 Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB
+-07.3 Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI
+-0c.0 Yamaha Corporation DS1L Audio
+-0d.0 Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8029(AS)
\-0e.0 Adaptec AIC-7861

lspci -v
...
00:0e.0 SCSI storage controller: Adaptec AIC-7861 (rev 03)
Subsystem: Adaptec AHA-2940AU Single
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 3
I/O ports at 1400 [disabled]
Memory at f4008000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 1

What seems strange to me is the message:

I/O ports at 1400 [disabled]

I guess I should perhaps activate the I/O ports via the BIOS?

[Geert Van Pamel]

I believe I have solved the problem completely.

First I need to lookup the proper SCSI alias.

pg /etc/modprobe.conf

alias scsi_hostadapter aic7xxx

Then I do need to load the driver manually

modprobe -v scsi_hostadapter

PCI: Enabling device 0000:00:0e.0 (0116 -> 0117)
PCI: Found IRQ 3 for device 0000:00:0e.0
scsi1 : Adaptec AIC7XXX EISA/VLB/PCI SCSI HBA DRIVER, Rev 6.2.36

aic7860: Ultra Single Channel A, SCSI Id=7, 3/253 SCBs

(scsi1:A:5): 10.000MB/s transfers (10.000MHz, offset 15)
Vendor: DEC Model: TLZ10 (C) DEC Rev: 04a8
Type: Sequential-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Attached scsi tape st0 at scsi1, channel 0, id 5, lun 0
st0: try direct i/o: yes (alignment 512 B), max page reachable by HBA 1048575

Now I see clearly that the device is enabled.

lsmod |grep st
st 31132 0
scsi_mod 91344 3 aic7xxx,sg,st

pg /proc/scsi/scsi

Host: scsi1 Channel: 00 Id: 05 Lun: 00
Vendor: DEC Model: TLZ10 (C) DEC Rev: 04a8
Type: Sequential-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02

(when no tape in the device)
mt -f /dev/st0 status
SCSI 2 tape drive:
File number=-1, block number=-1, partition=0.
Tape block size 0 bytes. Density code 0x0 (default).
Soft error count since last status=0
General status bits on (50000):
DR_OPEN IM_REP_EN

(after putting a tape into the device)
mt -f /dev/st0 rewind

mt -f /dev/st0 status
SCSI 2 tape drive:
File number=0, block number=0, partition=0.
Tape block size 0 bytes. Density code 0x25 (DDS-3).
Soft error count since last status=0
General status bits on (41010000):
BOT ONLINE IM_REP_EN

pg /etc/dumpdates
(never made a backup)

dump -W
Last dump(s) done (Dump '>' file systems):
/dev/hda5 ( /) Last dump: never
/dev/hda1 ( /boot) Last dump: never
/dev/hda2 ( /tmp) Last dump: never

dump -0uf /dev/nst0 /

DUMP: Date of this level 0 dump: Mon Oct 30 02:38:40 2006
DUMP: Dumping /dev/hda5 (/) to /dev/nst0
DUMP: Excluding inode 8 (journal inode) from dump
DUMP: Excluding inode 7 (resize inode) from dump
DUMP: Label: /
DUMP: Writing 10 Kilobyte records
DUMP: mapping (Pass I) [regular files]

DUMP: mapping (Pass II) [directories]
DUMP: estimated 3616335 blocks.
DUMP: Volume 1 started with block 1 at: Mon Oct 30 02:38:54 2006
DUMP: dumping (Pass III) [directories]
DUMP: ACLs in inode #56487 won't be dumped
...
DUMP: dumping (Pass IV) [regular files]

DUMP: ACLs in inode #65605 won't be dumped
DUMP: 8.08% done at 974 kB/s, finished in 0:56

Question: what does mean the message:
ACLs in inode #xxxx won't be dumped

* Note that the external SCSI terminator was not necessary for the internal SCSI tape to work correctly.

* Note also that the message "I/O ports at 1400 [disabled]" with the lspci -v command is not harmful.

[Huc_1]

Glad you solved it, and nice to see someone take the time to fully explain here, how the problem has been solved. (old ex:DEC quality perhaps...)

enjoy life

Jean-Pierre Huc

[Geert Van Pamel]

The default tape device for Red Hat seems to be /dev/tape, so it can be handy to create the following symbolic link.

cd /dev
ln -s nst0 tape

This way we do not need to issue the -f qualifier with dump, restore, mt.

After a reboot the tape device is unknown again, so we add modprobe to the local startup script.

lsmod |grep scsi
scsi_mod 91344 2 sg,st

vi /etc/rc.local
...
modprobe -v scsi_hostadapter

lsmod |grep scsi
scsi_mod 91344 3 aic7xxx,sg,st

mt status
SCSI 2 tape drive:
File number=-1, block number=-1, partition=0.
Tape block size 0 bytes. Density code 0x0 (default).
Soft error count since last status=0
General status bits on (50000):
DR_OPEN IM_REP_EN

dump -W

dump -0u /

dump -W

In solving this problem I got a lot of help from the excellent book "Linux Troubleshooting for System Administrators and Power Users", ISBN 0-13-185515-8