README.osst
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- README file for the osst driver
- ===============================
- (w) Kurt Garloff <garloff@suse.de> 12/2000
- This file describes the osst driver as of version 0.8.x/0.9.x, the released
- version of the osst driver.
- It is intended to help advanced users to understand the role of osst and to
- get them started using (and maybe debugging) it.
- It won't address issues like "How do I compile a kernel?" or "How do I load
- a module?", as these are too basic.
- Once the OnStream got merged into the official kernel, the distro makers
- will provide the OnStream support for those who are not familiar with
- hacking their kernels.
- Purpose
- -------
- The osst driver was developed, because the standard SCSI tape driver in
- Linux, st, does not support the OnStream SC-x0 SCSI tape. The st is not to
- blame for that, as the OnStream tape drives do not support the standard SCSI
- command set for Serial Access Storage Devices (SASDs), which basically
- corresponds to the QIC-157 spec.
- Nevertheless, the OnStream tapes are nice pieces of hardware and therefore
- the osst driver has been written to make these tape devs supported by Linux.
- The driver is free software. It's released under the GNU GPL and planned to
- be integrated into the mainstream kernel.
- Implementation
- --------------
- The osst is a new high-level SCSI driver, just like st, sr, sd and sg. It
- can be compiled into the kernel or loaded as a module.
- As it represents a new device, it got assigned a new device node: /dev/osstX
- are character devices with major no 206 and minor numbers like the /dev/stX
- devices. If those are not present, you may create them by calling
- Makedevs.sh as root (see below).
- The driver started being a copy of st and as such, the osst devices'
- behavior looks very much the same as st to the userspace applications.
- History
- -------
- In the first place, osst shared it's identity very much with st. That meant
- that it used the same kernel structures and the same device node as st.
- So you could only have either of them being present in the kernel. This has
- been fixed by registering an own device, now.
- st and osst can coexist, each only accessing the devices it can support by
- themselves.
- Installation
- ------------
- osst got integrated into the linux kernel. Select it during kernel
- configuration as module or compile statically into the kernel.
- Compile your kernel and install the modules.
- Now, your osst driver is inside the kernel or available as a module,
- depending on your choice during kernel config. You may still need to create
- the device nodes by calling the Makedevs.sh script (see below) manually,
- unless you use a devfs kernel, where this won't be needed.
- To load your module, you may use the command
- modprobe osst
- as root. dmesg should show you, whether your OnStream tapes have been
- recognized.
- If you want to have the module autoloaded on access to /dev/osst, you may
- add something like
- alias char-major-206 osst
- to your /etc/modules.conf (old name: conf.modules).
- You may find it convenient to create a symbolic link
- ln -s nosst0 /dev/tape
- to make programs assuming a default name of /dev/tape more convenient to
- use.
- The device nodes for osst have to be created. Use the Makedevs.sh script
- attached to this file.
- Using it
- --------
- You may use the OnStream tape driver with your standard backup software,
- which may be tar, cpio, amanda, arkeia, BRU, Lone Tar, ...
- by specifying /dev/(n)osst0 as the tape device to use or using the above
- symlink trick. The IOCTLs to control tape operation are also mostly
- supported and you may try the mt (or mt_st) program to jump between
- filemarks, eject the tape, ...
- There's one limitation: You need to use a block size of 32kB.
- (This limitation is worked on and will be fixed in version 0.8.8 of
- this driver.)
- If you just want to get started with standard software, here is an example
- for creating and restoring a full backup:
- # Backup
- tar cvf - / --exclude /proc | buffer -s 32k -m 24M -B -t -o /dev/nosst0
- # Restore
- buffer -s 32k -m 8M -B -t -i /dev/osst0 | tar xvf - -C /
- The buffer command has been used to buffer the data before it goes to the
- tape (or the file system) in order to smooth out the data stream and prevent
- the tape from needing to stop and rewind. The OnStream does have an internal
- buffer and a variable speed which help this, but especially on writing, the
- buffering still proves useful in most cases. It also pads the data to
- guarantees the block size of 32k. (Otherwise you may pass the -b64 option to
- tar.)
- Expect something like 1.8MB/s for the SC-x0 drives and 0.9MB/s for the DI-30.
- The USB drive will give you about 0.7MB/s.
- On a fast machine, you may profit from software data compression (z flag for
- tar).
- USB and IDE
- -----------
- Via the SCSI emulation layers usb-storage and ide-scsi, you can also use the
- osst driver to drive the USB-30 and the DI-30 drives. (Unfortunately, there
- is no such layer for the parallel port, otherwise the DP-30 would work as
- well.) For the USB support, you need the latest 2.4.0-test kernels and the
- latest usb-storage driver from
- http://www.linux-usb.org/
- http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=3581
- Note that the ide-tape driver as of 1.16f uses a slightly outdated on-tape
- format and therefore is not completely interoperable with osst tapes.
- The ADR-x0 line is fully SCSI-2 compliant and is supported by st, not osst.
- The on-tape format is supposed to be compatible with the one used by osst.
- Feedback and updates
- --------------------
- The driver development is coordinated through a mailing list
- <osst@linux1.onstream.nl>
- a CVS repository and some web pages.
- The tester's pages which contain recent news and updated drivers to download
- can be found on
- http://linux1.onstream.nl/test/
- If you find any problems, please have a look at the tester's page in order
- to see whether the problem is already known and solved. Otherwise, please
- report it to the mailing list. Your feedback is welcome. (This holds also
- for reports of successful usage, of course.)
- In case of trouble, please do always provide the following info:
- * driver and kernel version used (see syslog)
- * driver messages (syslog)
- * SCSI config and OnStream Firmware (/proc/scsi/scsi)
- * description of error. Is it reproducible?
- * software and commands used
- You may subscribe to the mailing list, BTW, it's a majordomo list.
- Status
- ------
- 0.8.0 was the first widespread BETA release. Since then a lot of reports
- have been sent, but mostly reported success or only minor trouble.
- All the issues have been addressed.
- Check the web pages for more info about the current developments.
- 0.9.x is the tree for the 2.3/2.4 kernel.
- Acknowledgments
- ----------------
- The driver has been started by making a copy of Kai Makisara's st driver.
- Most of the development has been done by Willem Riede. The presence of the
- userspace program osg (onstreamsg) from Terry Hardie has been rather
- helpful. The same holds for Gadi Oxman's ide-tape support for the DI-30.
- I did add some patches to those drivers as well and coordinated things a
- little bit.
- Note that most of them did mostly spend their spare time for the creation of
- this driver.
- The people from OnStream, especially Jack Bombeeck did support this project
- and always tried to answer HW or FW related questions. Furthermore, he
- pushed the FW developers to do the right things.
- SuSE did support this project by allowing me to work on it during my working
- time for them and by integrating the driver into their distro.
- More people did help by sending useful comments. Sorry to those who have
- been forgotten. Thanks to all the GNU/FSF and Linux developers who made this
- platform such an interesting, nice and stable platform.
- Thanks go to those who tested the drivers and did send useful reports. Your
- help is needed!
- Makedevs.sh
- -----------
- #!/bin/sh
- # Script to create OnStream SC-x0 device nodes (major 206)
- # Usage: Makedevs.sh [nos [path to dev]]
- # $Id: README.osst.kernel,v 1.4 2000/12/20 14:13:15 garloff Exp $
- major=206
- nrs=4
- dir=/dev
- test -z "$1" || nrs=$1
- test -z "$2" || dir=$2
- declare -i nr
- nr=0
- test -d $dir || mkdir -p $dir
- while test $nr -lt $nrs; do
- mknod $dir/osst$nr c $major $nr
- chown 0.disk $dir/osst$nr; chmod 660 $dir/osst$nr;
- mknod $dir/nosst$nr c $major $[nr+128]
- chown 0.disk $dir/nosst$nr; chmod 660 $dir/nosst$nr;
- mknod $dir/osst${nr}l c $major $[nr+32]
- chown 0.disk $dir/osst${nr}l; chmod 660 $dir/osst${nr}l;
- mknod $dir/nosst${nr}l c $major $[nr+160]
- chown 0.disk $dir/nosst${nr}l; chmod 660 $dir/nosst${nr}l;
- mknod $dir/osst${nr}m c $major $[nr+64]
- chown 0.disk $dir/osst${nr}m; chmod 660 $dir/osst${nr}m;
- mknod $dir/nosst${nr}m c $major $[nr+192]
- chown 0.disk $dir/nosst${nr}m; chmod 660 $dir/nosst${nr}m;
- mknod $dir/osst${nr}a c $major $[nr+96]
- chown 0.disk $dir/osst${nr}a; chmod 660 $dir/osst${nr}a;
- mknod $dir/nosst${nr}a c $major $[nr+224]
- chown 0.disk $dir/nosst${nr}a; chmod 660 $dir/nosst${nr}a;
- let nr+=1
- done