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166 lines
6.7 KiB
HTML
166 lines
6.7 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML//EN">
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<head>
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<title>SCSI Media Changer and Backup Device Control System</title>
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</head>
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<body>
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<center>
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<h1>SCSI Media Changer and Backup Device Control System</h1>
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</center>
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<p>
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[Also see the SourceForge <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/mtx">
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project page</a>.]
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<p>
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<i>mtx</i> is a set of low level driver programs to control features
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of SCSI backup related devices such as autoloaders, tape changers,
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media jukeboxes, and tape drives. It can also report much data,
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including serial numbers, maximum block sizes, and TapeAlert(tm)
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messages that most modern tape drives implement (to tell you the exact
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reason why a backup or restore failed), as well as do raw SCSI READ
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and WRITE commands to tape drives (not important on Linux, but
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important on Solaris due to the fact that the Solaris tape driver
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supports none of the additional features of tape drives invented after
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1988). <i>mtx</i> is designed to be a low level driver in a larger
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scripted backup solution, such as <a
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href="http://amanda.sourceforge.net">Amanda</a>.
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<i>mtx</i> is not
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supposed to itself be a high level interface to the SCSI devices that
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it controls.
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<p>
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This version has the following features:
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<ul>
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<li> Will deal with LARGE media libraries (over a hundred elements).
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<li> Supports multi-drive media changers such as the Exabyte 220 dual-
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drive tape library.
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<li> Supports the 'invert' bit for optical jukeboxes that need that in
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order to flip their media.
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<li> Supports the 'eepos' bits for libraries that need this to extend/retract
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their import/export tray.
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<li> Now supports import/export elements!
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<li> Reports volume tags (bar codes) and "alternate volume tags"
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(whatever those are!) for those tape libraries
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that support them.
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<li> Now runs under FreeBSD and at least Solaris 8.
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<li> Now has a 'man' page!
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<li> The actual SCSI manipulation has been separated out into a library, so
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that you can create your own "C" programs that manipulate SCSI media changers
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directly. (Please note: this is under GPL, so any such programs will have
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to be under GPL also).
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</ul>
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<p>
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This program supposedly supports FreeBSD, Solaris, Linux, HP/UX, and
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IRIX. Tru64 Unix and VMS are probably irretrievably broken at this
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time. This program has been tested under FreeBSD, Solaris, and Linux,
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and there only with a limited set of hardware. See the COMPATIBILITY
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list in the source code.
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</ul>
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<h2> Source Code </h2>
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The current source code is:
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<ul>
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<li> <a href="http://mtx.sourceforge.net/mtx-1.2.13.tar.gz">http://mtx.sourceforge.net/mtx-1.2.13.tar.gz</a>
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</ul>
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RPMs may be available from the following place:
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<ul>
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<li> <a href="http://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/mtx.html">RPMfind's 'mtx' page</a>
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</ul>
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A .spec file is now included in the 'mtx' distribution for building your
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own RPM's.
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<p>
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Note that RPMs
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are courtesy of <a href="http://www.sewingwitch.com/ken/">Kenneth Porter</a>,
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who should be contacted regarding rpm-related problems.
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<p>
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<h2> Known Bugs And Limitations </h2>
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<ul>
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<li>
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You may need to do a 'mt offline' (or equivalent for your OS)
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on the tape drive to
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eject the tape before you can issue the 'mtx unload' command.
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The Exabyte EZ-17 and 220 in particular will happily
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sit there snapping the robot arm's claws around thin air
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trying to grab a tape that's not there.
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<li>
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The 'next' command does not understand the 'invert' bit (i.e., does not
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recognize that for optical jukeboxes, the 'next' of side one is to unload,
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invert, and reload the same disk). It always advances to the next
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slot instead.
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<li>
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For some Linux distributions, you may need to re-compile
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the kernel to scan SCSI LUN's in order to detect the media
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changer. Check /proc/scsi/scsi to see what's going on.
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<li>
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If you try to unload a tape to its 'source' slot, and said
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slot is full, it will instead put the tape into the first
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empty slot. Unfortunately the list of empty slots is not
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updated between commands on the command line, so if you
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try to unload another drive to a full 'source' slot during
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the same invocation of 'mtx', it will try to unload to the
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same (no longer empty) slot and will urp with a SCSI
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error.
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<li> For big tape libraries (more than a couple dozen elements) this
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may set a big Allocation_Size in the SCSI command block for the
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REQUEST_ELEMENT_STATUS command. Some operating systems may not be able
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to handle this. Versions of Linux earlier than 2.2.6, in particular,
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may fail this request due to inability to find contiguous pages of
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memory for the SCSI transfer (later versions of Linux 'sg' device do
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scatter-gather so that this should no longer be a problem).
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<li> VMS and Tru64 support are probably irretrievably busted.
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<li> This program will only use the first arm of multiple-arm robots unless
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the robot re-maps all arms to one element ID.
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<li> It has been reported that this program works on Solaris 7 using the 'sst'
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driver, and may work on Solaris 8 using the 'sgen' driver. 'sst' can
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be gotten from the Amanda contrib directory at
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<a href="http://download.sourceforge.net/amanda/">http://download.sourceforge.net/amanda</a>.
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</ul>
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<h2> Philosophy </h2>
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The Unix philosophy is "many small tools chained together". <i>mtx</i> supplies
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those small tools so that you can create your own backup and
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recovery tools by chaining
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<i>mtx</i> pieces together, whether it be with /bin/sh, Perl, Python, or
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CAML.
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<h2> Support </h2>
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<ul>
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<li>There is now a 'mtx' mailing list at <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/mtx/">http://sourceforge.net/projects/mtx/</a>.
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<li>There is now a 'mtx' home page at <a href="http://mtx.sourceforge.net">http://mtx.sourceforge.net</a>.
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<li> There is now a FAQ that is part of the source code. Please read the
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FAQ first.
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<li>Report problems to Eric Lee Green (<a
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href="mailto:eric@badtux.org">eric@badtux.org</a>). READ THE FAQ FIRST!
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</ul>
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<h2> See Also: </h2>
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<ul>
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<li>The man page for 'mtx'! (once you get it installed).
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<li>T-10 SCSI Working Group home page at <a href="http://www.t10.org">www.t10.org</a>.
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<li>The Linux 'sg' SCSI generic driver home page at <a href="http://www.torque.net/sg/">http://www.torque.net/sg/</a>.
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<li> <a href="http://badtux.org/eric">The Home Page Of <UL> Tags Anonymous</a> Hi, my name is Eric, and I am addicted to the <UL> tag...
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</ul>
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<hr>
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<address>Maintained by <a href="mailto:eric@badtux.org">Eric Lee Green</a><br>
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Hosted by <a href="http://www.valinux.com">VA Linux</a>'s <a href="http://www.sourceforge.net">SourceForge</a></address><br>
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<!-- Created: Fri Mar 3 12:19:38 MST 2000 -->
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<!-- hhmts start -->
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Last modified: Mon Jun 25 15:37:22 MST 2001
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<!-- hhmts end -->
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</body>
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</html>
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