patch-2.2.19 linux/drivers/scsi/README.osst

• Lines: 219
• Date: Sun Mar 25 11:37:35 2001
• Orig file: v2.2.18/drivers/scsi/README.osst
• Orig date: Wed Dec 31 19:00:00 1969

diff -u --new-file --recursive --exclude-from /usr/src/exclude v2.2.18/drivers/scsi/README.osst linux/drivers/scsi/README.osst
@@ -0,0 +1,218 @@
+README file for the osst driver
+===============================
+(w) Kurt Garloff <garloff@suse.de> 11/2000
+
+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
+their own device.
+
+
+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 0.8.7 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.
+
+
+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 1.1.2.2 2000/12/20 14:08:38 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