Tape Backup Hangs

[Joyce Yuen]

Hello,

I am trying use a Ultrium 230 tape drive on my RedHat 7.2 with 2.4.7 kernel. Tape can be rewinded. But, the system hangs as I backup files using the command:
----------------------------------------
#tar cvf /dev/st0 myfolder
myfolder/
myfolder/test.txt
----------------------------------------

I believe modules have already loaded.

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# lsmod
Module Size Used by
ide-scsi 8224 0
autofs 11520 0 (autoclean) (unused)
eepro100 17664 1
ipchains 39200 0
st 26240 1
usb-ohci 18544 0 (unused)
usbcore 51712 1 [usb-ohci]
ext3 64624 8
jbd 40992 8 [ext3]
cciss 17488 9
aic7xxx 114544 1
sd_mod 11584 0 (unused)
scsi_mod 95664 4 [ide-scsi st aic7xxx sd_mod]
----------------------------------------

SCSI devices seems to be listed correctly:

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#cat /proc/scsi/scsi
Attached devices:
Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 03 Lun: 00
Vendor: HP Model: Ultrium 1-SCSI Rev: E22D
Type: Sequential-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 03
Host: scsi2 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00
Vendor: COMPAQ Model: CRD-8402B Rev: 1.03
Type: CD-ROM
----------------------------------------

The tape drive status is normal!?

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# mt -t /dev/st0 status
SCSI 2 tape drive:
File number=0, block number=0, partition=0.
Tape block size 0 bytes. Density code 0x40 (DLT1 40 GB, or Ultrium).
Soft error count since last status=0
General status bits on (41010000):
BOT ONLINE IM_REP_EN
----------------------------------------

I don't really what steps or configuration are missing. Any help/ suggestion? Thanks in advance!

Regards,
Joyce

[Alexander M. Ermes · Accepted solution]

Hi there.
Is the Ultrium drive attached to a SCSI interface with other devices ( especially disks ) ? If yes, that is one of your problems.
These drives should have an interface on their own. Anything else daisychained will have a bad influence on the peformance of the Ultrium drive.
Rgds
Alexander M. Ermes

[Kodjo Agbenu]

Hello,

A customer of mine had a similar problem. It was fixed by a kernel upgrade.

You can download 2.4.9 by RedHat at :

ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/updates/7.2/en/os/i686
If it is too slow, you can also try :

ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/redhat/updates/7.2/en/os/i686/

If you know what you are doing, you can try to compile a more recent kernel by yourself (of course at your own risk).

Good luck.

Kodjo

[Joyce Yuen]

Hello Kodjo,

I have upgraded my kernel to 2.4.9.
But, my problem cannot be solved.

Anyway, thanks for your suggestion.

Joyce

[Joyce Yuen]

Hello,

Refer to the reply from Alexander M. Ermes.

Anybody know how to check a tape drive attached to the same SCSI interface with other devices. Can the command output tell?

--------------------------------------------
# dmesg|grep scsi
(scsi0) found at PCI 1/2/0
(scsi0) Wide Channel A, SCSI ID=7, 32/255 SCBs
(scsi0) Downloading sequencer code... 396 instructions downloaded
(scsi1) found at PCI 1/2/1
(scsi1) Wide Channel B, SCSI ID=7, 32/255 SCBs
(scsi1) Downloading sequencer code... 396 instructions downloaded
scsi0 : Adaptec AHA274x/284x/294x (EISA/VLB/PCI-Fast SCSI) 5.2.4/5.2.0
scsi1 : Adaptec AHA274x/284x/294x (EISA/VLB/PCI-Fast SCSI) 5.2.4/5.2.0
Attached scsi tape st0 at scsi0, channel 0, id 3, lun 0
scsi2 : SCSI host adapter emulation for IDE ATAPI devices
--------------------------------------------

My server is Proliant ML370G.

Joyce

[I_M]

Hi

Your system disk seemes RAID from cpq. Your system using cciss, which is a HW RAID driver.

Your server has a scsi chip with 2ch, SCSI0 and SCSI1.

SCSI0 Ultrium is connected.
SCSI1 ?
SCSI2 IDE-SCSI emulation

That's all I can see from your info.

Since I don't familiar with your HW, I don't know if your cciss uses CH1 or CH2 of your scsi.

Good luck