Redhat Linux kernel 2.4.21-27.ELsmp - tape drive device files disappear

[Andrew Rycroft]

Hi,

We have a MSL5030 Ultrium 230 tape library connected to a SAN with a ProLiant ML570T G2 XEON 3.0/4M. The SAN is a single path configuration.

We can see the tape library on the SAN if we create the device files manually. But Linux deletes them on reboot. If we try and backup to the library we get an IO error. The tape library indicates that there are no errors, and no errors appear in any if the logs.

Any input on whether this is normal for Linux, or what could be causing this would be appreciated.

With regards
Andrew

[Steven E. Protter]

This is not normal.

Check the following items in any order:

1) Cable connections
2) SCSI Addresss of device, SCSI card etc.
3) Make sure the scsi card is LVD
4) Address of the Fiber card if thats how you connect.

Connecting to these kind of devices sometimes requires third party products/drivers.

SEP

[xyko_1]

Hi Andrew,

what you mean about "..create the device files manually." ?

Are you talking about create scsi device using scsi add-single-device ?

If your tape devices are been created under luns > 0 then you probably need to enable scsi-multi-lun support in your kernel or you will have to create the devices manually after all boots.

There are a great script that usualy solves that problem, if you don't want to rebuild your kernel with scsi multi-lun support, but still has to be called after all boot.
The link is http://www.garloff.de/kurt/linux/rescan-scsi-bus.sh

Hope it helps.
xyko