Documentation/scsi/osst.txt - linux - Git at Google

 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.

 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/modprobe.conf (before 2.6: modules.conf).

 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
	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.

	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/modprobe.conf (before 2.6: modules.conf).

	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