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DAT drive installation for Linux - Servers

Product Documentation


Abstract

Installing a DAT (Tape) drive in Linux

Content

Symptom

How do I setup and use a DAT drive in Linux?

Solution
  1. Ensure the switches on the DAT drive are set to default factory settings.
  2. Check the boot up log files that are in the /var directory (/var/logs ?) and look at how the system booted up. Do you see a DAT drive? If so, then Linux also "sees" the drive.
  3. Check the /dev directory for rmt devices. If rmt device names are present, then check the date of the files; it may be that the DAT drive was detected after all. You can remove any rmt device names since Linux will recreate them on boot up anyway. It may also be good to delete the log files that Linux creates during boot up in order to not be confused with previous boot ups.
  4. Boot the system with the DAT drive attached and execute the following commands:

    lsmod - this will show the current loaded modules. Only one should be st. If there are more than one st, then one of them should be unloaded. (It may help to have the sg driver loaded as TDiag uses the SG driver).

    dmesg | grep tape - If a tape drive was detected there should be a message similar to "Detected tape st0 . . . ". This command would scan the /var log files which were created during boot up.

Also, look at the /dev directory to view for any rmt devices. Since we deleted any /rmt devices in the above step, any new rmt devices should be the DAT drive.

Two more things, if the SCSI controller that the DAT drive is attached to is a wide controller, then there must be a wide terminator on the cable to terminate the upper portion of the bus. To do that, remove the terminator jumpers on the DAT drive and attach the wide terminator.

Also, do not be fooled by the output of an mt status command to a tape drive which does not have a tape installed. The MT command for status, MT -f /dev/rmt0 status, will show a busy or some other kind of message which will look like an error. Put a tape in before issuing an MT status command.

Document Location

Worldwide

Operating System

System x Hardware Options:All operating systems listed

Older System x:Caldera Open UNIX 8.x

Older System x:Red Hat Linux

Older System x:SUSE Linux

Older System x:Turbolinux

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Document Information

Modified date:
24 January 2019

UID

ibm1MIGR-42564

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