Dear scsi developers/specialists,
I have some real problems running a scsi tape with Linux. Until now I had to
restore/reinstall
Linux about five times because the file system was heavily damaged.
This severe problems I had with the following configuration:
PC with Cyrix CPU 120 Mhz, 48 MB RAM
Linux SuSE distribution 5.2 (later 6.2) with kernel version 2.0.33/2.0.36 (later
2.2.10)
One scsi host adapter Adaptec 1542 with the following devices:
|------------+--------------------------------|
|id |device |
|------------+--------------------------------|
|0 |HD: |
| |IBM Model: DCAS-34330 Rev: S65A |
|------------+--------------------------------|
|2 |Tape: |
| |HP Model: C1533A Rev: A708 |
|------------+--------------------------------|
|3 |Cdrom: |
| |TOSHIBA Model: CD-ROM XM-5701TA|
| |Rev: 1557 |
|------------+--------------------------------|
|7 |host adapter |
|------------+--------------------------------|
I setup everything using the "SCSI checklist" from SuSE. I also disabled "sync
negotiation" and
"allow disconnect" in the host adapter BIOS.
Sometimes when running a backup program the sytem crashed and could only be rebooted
by a
hardware reset. The file system check reported a lot of errors and tried to repair but
very
much files were destroyed or the file system couldn't even be repaired.
OK, thats history because I now have a different host adapter. Kurt Garloff told me
that the
Adaptec host isn't very reliable and may cause problems like that I have. So I bought
a Tekram
host adapter. The configuration now is:
PC with Cyrix CPU 120 Mhz, 48 MB RAM
Linux SuSE distribution 6.2 with kernel version 2.2.10
scsi host apadter 0: Adaptec 1542 (as before but with no devices attached)
scsi host adapter 1: Tekram DC390U with the following devices:
|------------+--------------------------------|
|id |device |
|------------+--------------------------------|
|0 |HD: |
| |IBM Model: DCAS-34330 Rev: S65A |
|------------+--------------------------------|
|2 |Tape: |
| |HP Model: C1533A Rev: A708 |
|------------+--------------------------------|
|3 |Cdrom: |
| |TOSHIBA Model: CD-ROM XM-5701TA|
| |Rev: 1557 |
|------------+--------------------------------|
|7 |host adapter |
|------------+--------------------------------|
I again disabled the "sync negotiation" and "allow disconnect" for ID 2 and 3.
When trying to read a tape (which was written by the Adaptec host) I get Input/Output
Errors
and thus the tape cannot be read. I didn't try to write something to the tape.
For now I can give you some examples of the syslog (see attachment "messages").
If you need more information ask me.
At the moment I connect the tape to the Adaptec host, the disk and cdrom to the Tekram
host.
Otherwise I cannot run the backup. But I really would like to know why it is possible
to crash
a system like Linux by just reading a DAT tape (I did it three times in one day). And
I also
think it should be possible to run a normal scsi device on a normal scsi host apapter,
shouldn't it?
I am hopefully awaiting your suggestions, opinions, questions!
Roland Boden.
(See attached file: messages)
messages
