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Exabyte 8500C on Solaris 2.2?

Exabyte 8500C on Solaris 2.2?

Post by Ken Mandelbe » Fri, 23 Jul 1993 02:02:05



One thread that never seems to die, is which version of the OS
supports which Exabyte option. This note adds to that thread:)

Does Solaris 2.2 support the Exabyte 8500C running in compressed
mode? The Solaris 2.2 man page says:

/dev/rmt/[0- 127][l,m,h,u,c][b][n]
     For helical-scan tape devices (Exabyte 8200/8500):
     l                   Standard 2 GB format
     m                   5 GB format  (8500 only)
     h                   5 GB format  (8500 only)
     c                   data compression  (8500 only)

Surely at very least the last line should say "8500c only".
Can I really just plug in an 8500C on a Solaris 2.2 (m arch) server,
and get 2,5,or compressed format by picking the right device?

It seems like the man page has been wrong in the past, and at the
very least some ID strings had to be edited in the driver (on
Sunos 5 or the config file on SunOS 4). I'd like to know before
buying a drive.

---

Emory University    | {rutgers,gatech}!emory!km    UUCP

Atlanta, GA 30322   | Phone: Voice (404) 727-7963, FAX 727-5611

 
 
 
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Exabyte 8500C on Solaris 2.2?

Post by Jan Wortelbo » Fri, 23 Jul 1993 21:19:55



>One thread that never seems to die, is which version of the OS
>supports which Exabyte option. This note adds to that thread:)
>Does Solaris 2.2 support the Exabyte 8500C running in compressed
>mode? The Solaris 2.2 man page says:
>/dev/rmt/[0- 127][l,m,h,u,c][b][n]
>     For helical-scan tape devices (Exabyte 8200/8500):
>     l                   Standard 2 GB format
>     m                   5 GB format  (8500 only)
>     h                   5 GB format  (8500 only)
>     c                   data compression  (8500 only)
>Surely at very least the last line should say "8500c only".
>Can I really just plug in an 8500C on a Solaris 2.2 (m arch) server,
>and get 2,5,or compressed format by picking the right device?
>It seems like the man page has been wrong in the past, and at the
>very least some ID strings had to be edited in the driver (on
>Sunos 5 or the config file on SunOS 4). I'd like to know before
>buying a drive.

Yup we had to patch the /kernel/drv/st driver to.

Our Exabyte 8500C gives on INQUIRY:
    Vendor:                 'EXABYTE '
    Product:                'EXB8500C8CQANXR0'
Which results in 'EXABYTE EXB8500C8CQANXR0'
and if you do a strings /kernel/drv/st | grep -i exa
you get
exabyte soft error reporting failed
EXABYTE EXB-8500
EXABYTE EXB-8200
Exabyte EXB-8500 8mm Helical Scan
Exabyte EXB-8200 8mm Helical Scan

where 'EXABYTE EXB-850' != 'EXABYTE EXB850'

our st gives NOW
strings /kernel/drv/st | grep -i exa -->
exabyte soft error reporting failed
EXABYTE EXB8500C
EXABYTE EXB-8200
Exabyte EXB8500C 8mm Helical Scan
Exabyte EXB-8200 8mm Helical Scan

And it seemed to work.

But the density code's used for the 8500 are "0x14, 0x15, 0x8C, 0x8C"
which mean (atleast i think so):

     l                   Standard 2 GB format (8200 format)
     m                   5 GB format  (8500 only)
     h                   data compression  (8500 only)
     c                   data compression  (8500 only)

0x14 == 8200 mode
0x90 == 8200 Compressed mode
0x15 == 8500 mode
0x8c == 8500 Compressed mode

P.S. according to exabyte manuals ident's are:
(12.5 GB) 8205  => EXABYTE EXB-8205
(25   GB) 8505  => EXABYTE EXB-8505
(25   GB) 8500C => EXABYTE EXB8500C
--
Jan Wortelboer,  University of Amsterdam

Unix             Kruislaan 403 Kamer F003     Phone: +31 20 525 7501
systems manager  1098 SJ AMSTERDAM            Fax  : +31 20 525 7490

 
 
 
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Exabyte 8500C on Solaris 2.2?

Post by Casper H.S. D » Fri, 23 Jul 1993 22:23:44




}>One thread that never seems to die, is which version of the OS
}>supports which Exabyte option. This note adds to that thread:)
}>Does Solaris 2.2 support the Exabyte 8500C running in compressed
}>mode? The Solaris 2.2 man page says:
}>/dev/rmt/[0- 127][l,m,h,u,c][b][n]
}>     For helical-scan tape devices (Exabyte 8200/8500):
}>     l                   Standard 2 GB format
}>     m                   5 GB format  (8500 only)
}>     h                   5 GB format  (8500 only)
}>     c                   data compression  (8500 only)
}>Surely at very least the last line should say "8500c only".
}>Can I really just plug in an 8500C on a Solaris 2.2 (m arch) server,
}>and get 2,5,or compressed format by picking the right device?
}>It seems like the man page has been wrong in the past, and at the
}>very least some ID strings had to be edited in the driver (on
}>Sunos 5 or the config file on SunOS 4). I'd like to know before
}>buying a drive.
}Yup we had to patch the /kernel/drv/st driver to.

Jan, you forgot the patch:

#        perl -pi.FCS -e s/EXB-8500/EXB8500C/ /kernel/drv/st

   making sure you don't use any SCSI tape devices:

#        modunload -i `modinfo | grep -w st | awk '{ print $1 }'`

No reboot (the device nodes were already configured). It worked.

Casper

 
 
 
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1. Exabyte 8500C woes in SOlaris 2.3

I have an Exabyte 8500C that works fine when attached to a SunOS 4.1
machine. When I attach it to a Solaris 2.3 machine, I cannot read a tape I
could previously read with the same drive on the 4.1 machine (the tape must
be in a compressed format).

Does one have to do anything special to get Solaris tape drivers to read
8500C tapes properly? It seems (from <sys/mtio.h>) that Solaris knows only
the 8200 and 8500 by default, so I would understand that Solaris, by default,
would not know how to specify that one is writing in compressed mode.

In SunOS 4.1, one modified the /usr/sys/scsi/targets/st_conf.c file to
describe tape driver characteristics. In Solaris, one modifies
/kernel/drv/st.conf. I tried to specify the 8500C characteristics using the
st_conf.h 8500C entry as a guide. These are the values I have:

vendor string = "EXABYTE EXB8500C"
flags         = ST_VARIABLE | ST_BSF | ST_BSR | ST_LONG_ERASE
density codes= 0x14, 0x15, 0x90, 0x8C

The Solaris st.conf entry requires a type value (from mtio.h), and I don't
know whether to specify MT_ISEXB8500 or MT_IS8MM for the 8500C.

When I modified the st.conf file and rebooted, I could read low and hi
density tapes under Solaris, but not compressed ones.

Has anyone else had to get an 8500C working under Solaris? How was it done?
Does it make a difference to reading if the tape is accessed via the
different device names that specifify the densities (e.g. /dev/rmt/0ln,
0lbn, 0hn, 0hbn, 0cn, 0cbn)? My understanding is that is does not, and the
drive itself overides the ``requested'' density with that of the actual data
on the tape.

Wondering,
Ray Blaak

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