Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
Hi all, if the scsi-connector is more then 50-pin's wide you'll have to look in the HW doc to determin that. If its only 50 pin wide, it's definitly a SE device. Christoph Eric Siegerman schrieb: On Mon, Feb 07, 2005 at 04:41:17PM -0500, Jon LaBadie wrote: Can on look at the device connectors, or better yet, the external connectors, and tell if a device is LVD or SE? Or does one have to check the HW doc? I have no idea. Sorry. -- | | /\ |-_|/ Eric Siegerman, Toronto, Ont.[EMAIL PROTECTED] | | / The animal that coils in a circle is the serpent; that's why so many cults and myths of the serpent exist, because it's hard to represent the return of the sun by the coiling of a hippopotamus. - Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum
RE: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
Eric Siegerman schrieb: On Mon, Feb 07, 2005 at 04:41:17PM -0500, Jon LaBadie wrote: Can on look at the device connectors, or better yet, the external connectors, and tell if a device is LVD or SE? Or does one have to check the HW doc? If you're lucky enough that the manufacturer has prited a scsi symbol on it you can compare the symbol to the list here http://scsifaq.paralan.com/scsifaqanswers4.html [scroll to the bottom of the page] BMRB International http://www.bmrb.co.uk +44 (0)20 8566 5000 _ This message (and any attachment) is intended only for the recipient and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. If you have received this in error, please contact the sender and delete this message immediately. Disclosure, copying or other action taken in respect of this email or in reliance on it is prohibited. BMRB International Limited accepts no liability in relation to any personal emails, or content of any email which does not directly relate to our business.
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
I have the new scsi card (an inexpensive LSILogic LSIU80ALVDB) that fixes the problems I was having. So, the Exabyte tech support was correct and the great advice I got herein this mailing list also said get a separate scsi card ! I am still using the older driver. I will be updating the driver to the newer sym53c8xx-2 and also experimenting with the amtape and mtx commands to manipulate this new autoloader. I may be asking some additional good questions if I have any more problems. Thanks for all the great help ! On Mon, 2005-02-07 at 16:20 -0500, James D. Freels wrote: I am near positive I did not fry anything since everything is working correctly except a sustained write to the tape. If anything were damages, I would expect nothing to work at all. I have ordered the new scsi card and I will report back in to this thread when I find the results. I am also interested in using the sym53c8xx-2 driver instead of the older ones. The older drivers presently work the best with the present configuration. Perhaps the newer drivers do not tolerate the bad scsi chain as well as the older ones ? On Mon, 2005-02-07 at 15:55 -0500, Eric Siegerman wrote: On Fri, Feb 04, 2005 at 07:21:59PM -0500, Gene Heskett wrote: Aha, LVD! LVD is not compatible with the rest of the system unless the rest of the system is also LVD. It is two, completely seperate signalling methods that just happen to use the same cabling. Yes and no. From the SCSI FAQ: [ANSI] specified that if an LVD device is designed properly, it can switch to S.E. [single-ended, i.e. normal, SCSI] mode and operate with S.E. devices on the same bus segment. - http://h000625f788f5.ne.client2.attbi.com/scsi_faq/scsifaq.html#Generic099 So if you mix it with S.E., you lose its LVDness, e.g. you have to stick to a S.E. bus length; but you shouldn't fry any hardware. HVD (high-voltage differential, i.e. the original differential variant of SCSI) is another story completely! That is indeed flat-out incompatible with S.E. (and presumably with LVD too...) -- | | /\ |-_|/ Eric Siegerman, Toronto, Ont.[EMAIL PROTECTED] | | / The animal that coils in a circle is the serpent; that's why so many cults and myths of the serpent exist, because it's hard to represent the return of the sun by the coiling of a hippopotamus. - Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
On Mon, Feb 07, 2005 at 04:41:17PM -0500, Jon LaBadie wrote: Can on look at the device connectors, or better yet, the external connectors, and tell if a device is LVD or SE? Or does one have to check the HW doc? I have no idea. Sorry. -- | | /\ |-_|/ Eric Siegerman, Toronto, Ont.[EMAIL PROTECTED] | | / The animal that coils in a circle is the serpent; that's why so many cults and myths of the serpent exist, because it's hard to represent the return of the sun by the coiling of a hippopotamus. - Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
On Fri, Feb 04, 2005 at 07:21:59PM -0500, Gene Heskett wrote: Aha, LVD! LVD is not compatible with the rest of the system unless the rest of the system is also LVD. It is two, completely seperate signalling methods that just happen to use the same cabling. Yes and no. From the SCSI FAQ: [ANSI] specified that if an LVD device is designed properly, it can switch to S.E. [single-ended, i.e. normal, SCSI] mode and operate with S.E. devices on the same bus segment. - http://h000625f788f5.ne.client2.attbi.com/scsi_faq/scsifaq.html#Generic099 So if you mix it with S.E., you lose its LVDness, e.g. you have to stick to a S.E. bus length; but you shouldn't fry any hardware. HVD (high-voltage differential, i.e. the original differential variant of SCSI) is another story completely! That is indeed flat-out incompatible with S.E. (and presumably with LVD too...) -- | | /\ |-_|/ Eric Siegerman, Toronto, Ont.[EMAIL PROTECTED] | | / The animal that coils in a circle is the serpent; that's why so many cults and myths of the serpent exist, because it's hard to represent the return of the sun by the coiling of a hippopotamus. - Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
I am near positive I did not fry anything since everything is working correctly except a sustained write to the tape. If anything were damages, I would expect nothing to work at all. I have ordered the new scsi card and I will report back in to this thread when I find the results. I am also interested in using the sym53c8xx-2 driver instead of the older ones. The older drivers presently work the best with the present configuration. Perhaps the newer drivers do not tolerate the bad scsi chain as well as the older ones ? On Mon, 2005-02-07 at 15:55 -0500, Eric Siegerman wrote: On Fri, Feb 04, 2005 at 07:21:59PM -0500, Gene Heskett wrote: Aha, LVD! LVD is not compatible with the rest of the system unless the rest of the system is also LVD. It is two, completely seperate signalling methods that just happen to use the same cabling. Yes and no. From the SCSI FAQ: [ANSI] specified that if an LVD device is designed properly, it can switch to S.E. [single-ended, i.e. normal, SCSI] mode and operate with S.E. devices on the same bus segment. - http://h000625f788f5.ne.client2.attbi.com/scsi_faq/scsifaq.html#Generic099 So if you mix it with S.E., you lose its LVDness, e.g. you have to stick to a S.E. bus length; but you shouldn't fry any hardware. HVD (high-voltage differential, i.e. the original differential variant of SCSI) is another story completely! That is indeed flat-out incompatible with S.E. (and presumably with LVD too...) -- | | /\ |-_|/ Eric Siegerman, Toronto, Ont.[EMAIL PROTECTED] | | / The animal that coils in a circle is the serpent; that's why so many cults and myths of the serpent exist, because it's hard to represent the return of the sun by the coiling of a hippopotamus. - Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
On Mon, Feb 07, 2005 at 03:55:36PM -0500, Eric Siegerman wrote: On Fri, Feb 04, 2005 at 07:21:59PM -0500, Gene Heskett wrote: Aha, LVD! LVD is not compatible with the rest of the system unless the rest of the system is also LVD. It is two, completely seperate signalling methods that just happen to use the same cabling. Yes and no. From the SCSI FAQ: [ANSI] specified that if an LVD device is designed properly, it can switch to S.E. [single-ended, i.e. normal, SCSI] mode and operate with S.E. devices on the same bus segment. - http://h000625f788f5.ne.client2.attbi.com/scsi_faq/scsifaq.html#Generic099 So if you mix it with S.E., you lose its LVDness, e.g. you have to stick to a S.E. bus length; but you shouldn't fry any hardware. Can on look at the device connectors, or better yet, the external connectors, and tell if a device is LVD or SE? Or does one have to check the HW doc? -- Jon H. LaBadie [EMAIL PROTECTED] JG Computing 4455 Province Line Road(609) 252-0159 Princeton, NJ 08540-4322 (609) 683-7220 (fax)
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
I specifically pointed out to the Exabyte tech support that I thought the Linux tools provided with the tape drive were Intel-specific and because I had an Alpha, it would not execute properly. I knew this because I had already tried to use them prior to calling Exabyte. I already had the latest firmware upgrades and tools ready as I was going to do this anyway. But, before I had tried it, I already had a call into Exabyte tech support to see if it was really necessary to upgrade the firmware in my case. This was 2-3 phone calls into their tech support. They finally returned my call and by this time I had already made significant progress. I agree that I should insist on getting a version of their utilities that will run on this Alpha/LInux machine. When talking with the tech support, he actually read the system requirements back to me as we looked at them together on the web and he pointed out it just says linux 2.4.x and does NOT specify particular arch. Indeed, the same tools are available in other OS besides Windows and Linux, so it should be fairly easy for them to recompile or provide the source so I can compile for my Alpha. I will make this request because I should not have to uncable and boot up an Intel machine specifically for this purpose. When you say cabling issues, does this include a separate scsi card specific for the tape drive ? I think my cable connections are good. The scsi card I have is a LSI Logic / Symbios Logic (formerly NCR) 53c875 (rev 04) All devices are indicating on boot up (dmesg) at 40 MB/s except the CD-Rom which is indicating 10 MB/s. I have 3 hard drives, 2 tape drives (including the new one having trouble), and 1 CD-Rom in this scsi chain. I have tried all three scsi drivers available for this card in the linux kernel 1) ncr53c8xx, 2) sym53c8xx, and 3) sym53c8xx-2. The ncr53c8xx driver seems to give the least problems, so I have concentrated on this one. As I said, the library (autoloader) seems to work correctly, but it is just the tape writing that is giving me problems at present. It is able to label the tapes, but not write a larger data set to the tape. On Thu, 2005-02-03 at 23:17 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote: On Thursday 03 February 2005 17:49, James D. Freels wrote: No. It should be still Alpha compatible. The problem is that the firmware upgrade utilities for Linux are binary-only so I cannot compile them for the alpha nor run them on the alpha. Are you saying its not a case of dd if=inputfile of=tape-device? They may have it wrapped up in something thats intel specific, but I'd almost bet a cold one that this intel specific loader does exactly that, particularly if its an admin program that has to be pointed at the file to be used for the upgrade itself. That doesn't mean you should jump right up and do it, but I'd sure be an inquisitive fly on the wall :) Talking to those folks like you might know what to do will often get the info even if they don't want to confirm it. Otherwise, I think if they insist on its being a wintel box that does the upgrade, I think I'd be a bit pushy about haveing them send someone out with the correct gear to do the upgrade if you don't have suitable gear on site, and definitely do it for nothing. It should have been uptodate when it was shipped IMO. I mean most changers are well above the 2000 dollar bill priceing range, some 10 to 20 times that price. For that you can reasonably expect it to work, or they should be very co-operative about remedying the situation since the loss of the sale isn't exactly pocket change to either of you. Use that leverage, politely, but use it. On Thu, 2005-02-03 at 16:19 -0500, Eric Siegerman wrote: On Thu, Feb 03, 2005 at 03:03:22PM -0500, James D. Freels wrote: Here is what [drive vendor's Tech Support said] is needed: 1) need a separate scsi chain; they said I already have too many scsi devices on this chain to make it reliable. See recent threads re. SCSI cables, bus lengths, etc. (Recent == last month or two). 2) need to upgrade the firmware in the autoloader to the latest version; this may not work on an alpha machine and more likely will only work from an Intel machine I sure hope you mean only that the upgrade process might need an Intel box. If that's the case, doing the firmware upgrades is the cheapest and probably easiest thing to try, even if you do have to do some temporary recabling (well, as long as you have an Intel box with a SCSI adapter...) If on the other hand you mean that, once upgraded, the unit might be less Alpha-compatible than it was before ... send the #!*~ thing back for a refund! :-) And thats your leverage. There are more or less accepted protocols to running one of these things, and if in their haste to make it a proprietary device so they have a locked in customer, they have seriously broken the protocols, you shouldn't want it anyway. What happens when you need to make a bare metal
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
On Fri, 4 Feb 2005, James D. Freels wrote:
When you say cabling issues, does this include a separate scsi card
specific for the
tape drive ? I think my cable connections are good.
The cable may be too long, or not properly terminated.
The scsi card I have is a LSI Logic / Symbios Logic (formerly NCR)
53c875 (rev 04)
All devices are indicating on boot up (dmesg) at 40 MB/s except the
CD-Rom which
is indicating 10 MB/s. I have 3 hard drives, 2 tape drives (including
the new one
having trouble), and 1 CD-Rom in this scsi chain. I have tried all
three scsi drivers
available for this card in the linux kernel 1) ncr53c8xx, 2) sym53c8xx,
and 3) sym53c8xx-2.
The ncr53c8xx driver seems to give the least problems, so I have
concentrated on
this one. As I said, the library (autoloader) seems to work
The ncr53c8xx driver is the very old one, sym53c8xx-2 is the new one. Actually
I've used all 3 of them with a 53c875 on a Linux/PPC box. sym53c8xx-2 (the
preferred one) should work fine.
correctly, but it
is just the tape writing that is giving me problems at present. It is
able to label the tapes,
but not write a larger data set to the tape.
Is the tape drive the last device on the cable?
You already have 6 devices (7 incl. the SCSI adapter), so the cable cannot be
that long. How long is it?
Gr{oetje,eeting}s,
Geert
--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say programmer or something like that.
-- Linus Torvalds
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
The tape drive is within the VXA-2 Packet-Loader 1U rack mount. It is connected via an external
scsi cable that came with the drive. the unit also came with it's own terminator which is also plugged into the
packet loader. The packet-loader is the only device connected to the scsi card externaly.
Inside, the scsi card has both a scsi-1 and scsi-2 connector. The scsi-1 connector has a single device
connected (the CD-Rom). The scsi-2 connector has the rest of the devices connected on a single cable
(3 hard drives, 1 VXA-1 Exabyte tape drive). It is a fairly long cable, with about 8 inches of cable separating each
device. The last device on the cable is the VXA-1 tape drive followed by a termination on the cable itself.
I guess I could go back and try the sym53c8xx-2 driver with more conservative settings on the options and
test again.
On Fri, 2005-02-04 at 15:54 +0100, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:
On Fri, 4 Feb 2005, James D. Freels wrote:
When you say cabling issues, does this include a separate scsi card
specific for the
tape drive ? I think my cable connections are good.
The cable may be too long, or not properly terminated.
The scsi card I have is a LSI Logic / Symbios Logic (formerly NCR)
53c875 (rev 04)
All devices are indicating on boot up (dmesg) at 40 MB/s except the
CD-Rom which
is indicating 10 MB/s. I have 3 hard drives, 2 tape drives (including
the new one
having trouble), and 1 CD-Rom in this scsi chain. I have tried all
three scsi drivers
available for this card in the linux kernel 1) ncr53c8xx, 2) sym53c8xx,
and 3) sym53c8xx-2.
The ncr53c8xx driver seems to give the least problems, so I have
concentrated on
this one. As I said, the library (autoloader) seems to work
The ncr53c8xx driver is the very old one, sym53c8xx-2 is the new one. Actually
I've used all 3 of them with a 53c875 on a Linux/PPC box. sym53c8xx-2 (the
preferred one) should work fine.
correctly, but it
is just the tape writing that is giving me problems at present. It is
able to label the tapes,
but not write a larger data set to the tape.
Is the tape drive the last device on the cable?
You already have 6 devices (7 incl. the SCSI adapter), so the cable cannot be
that long. How long is it?
Gr{oetje,eeting}s,
Geert
--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say programmer or something like that.
-- Linus Torvalds
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
On Fri, 4 Feb 2005, James D. Freels wrote:
The tape drive is within the VXA-2 Packet-Loader 1U rack mount. It is
connected via an external
scsi cable that came with the drive. the unit also came with it's own
terminator which is also plugged into the
packet loader. The packet-loader is the only device connected to the
scsi card externaly.
Inside, the scsi card has both a scsi-1 and scsi-2 connector. The
You mean, a narrow and a wide connector?
scsi-1 connector has a single device
connected (the CD-Rom). The scsi-2 connector has the rest of the
devices connected on a single cable
(3 hard drives, 1 VXA-1 Exabyte tape drive). It is a fairly long cable,
with about 8 inches of cable separating each
device. The last device on the cable is the VXA-1 tape drive followed
by a termination on the cable itself.
So the cabling is your problem: you should use maximum 2 of the 3 connectors on
a SCSI card, since it's supposed to be a single long chain without branches.
It's the same on mine (I have one with internal narrow and wide, and external
wide connectors).
Gr{oetje,eeting}s,
Geert
--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say programmer or something like that.
-- Linus Torvalds
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
On Friday 04 February 2005 09:41, James D. Freels wrote: I specifically pointed out to the Exabyte tech support that I thought the Linux tools provided with the tape drive were Intel-specific and because I had an Alpha, it would not execute properly. I knew this because I had already tried to use them prior to calling Exabyte. I already had the latest firmware upgrades and tools ready as I was going to do this anyway. But, before I had tried it, I already had a call into Exabyte tech support to see if it was really necessary to upgrade the firmware in my case. This was 2-3 phone calls into their tech support. They finally returned my call and by this time I had already made significant progress. I agree that I should insist on getting a version of their utilities that will run on this Alpha/LInux machine. When talking with the tech support, he actually read the system requirements back to me as we looked at them together on the web and he pointed out it just says linux 2.4.x and does NOT specify particular arch. Indeed, the same tools are available in other OS besides Windows and Linux, so it should be fairly easy for them to recompile or provide the source so I can compile for my Alpha. I will make this request because I should not have to uncable and boot up an Intel machine specifically for this purpose. When you say cabling issues, does this include a separate scsi card specific for the tape drive ? I think my cable connections are good. I don't recall mentioning cableing issues, but its certainly possible given the widespread miss-understanding of the specifics of setting up a bus system thats actually a transmission line and MUST be properly terminated. Even then it may call for sacrifical virgins etc to make it work if the term power is substandard as delivered down the cable from the host. The scsi card I have is a LSI Logic / Symbios Logic (formerly NCR) 53c875 (rev 04) All devices are indicating on boot up (dmesg) at 40 MB/s except the CD-Rom which is indicating 10 MB/s. I have 3 hard drives, 2 tape drives (including the new one having trouble), and 1 CD-Rom in this scsi chain. I have tried all three scsi drivers available for this card in the linux kernel 1) ncr53c8xx, 2) sym53c8xx, and 3) sym53c8xx-2. The ncr53c8xx driver seems to give the least problems, so I have concentrated on this one. As I said, the library (autoloader) seems to work correctly, but it is just the tape writing that is giving me problems at present. It is able to label the tapes, but not write a larger data set to the tape. This does begin to have the flavor of cabling/term problems about it. Q: Are all devices on the cable with this tape drive the same width, eg all 50 pin or all 80 pin? Q: If this drive is not the last on the cable, and at the very end of the cable, have the drives terms been removed? Q: If this drive is a narrow drive (50 pin connectors) and the card a wide, 80 pin card, has the extra, unused lines of the cable been terminated? If so, where? Grab a meter, and check the voltage available on one of the data lines when the system is powered up but quiet. Anything less than 2.75 volts is going to require the virgins, or replacing the silicon isolation diode on the card with a much lower voltage drop schotkey type in order to get adequate term power. 3.0 volts there should be the target to shoot at. On Thu, 2005-02-03 at 23:17 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote: On Thursday 03 February 2005 17:49, James D. Freels wrote: No. It should be still Alpha compatible. The problem is that the firmware upgrade utilities for Linux are binary-only so I cannot compile them for the alpha nor run them on the alpha. Are you saying its not a case of dd if=inputfile of=tape-device? They may have it wrapped up in something thats intel specific, but I'd almost bet a cold one that this intel specific loader does exactly that, particularly if its an admin program that has to be pointed at the file to be used for the upgrade itself. That doesn't mean you should jump right up and do it, but I'd sure be an inquisitive fly on the wall :) Talking to those folks like you might know what to do will often get the info even if they don't want to confirm it. Otherwise, I think if they insist on its being a wintel box that does the upgrade, I think I'd be a bit pushy about haveing them send someone out with the correct gear to do the upgrade if you don't have suitable gear on site, and definitely do it for nothing. It should have been uptodate when it was shipped IMO. I mean most changers are well above the 2000 dollar bill priceing range, some 10 to 20 times that price. For that you can reasonably expect it to work, or they should be very co-operative about remedying the situation since the loss of the sale isn't exactly pocket change to either of you. Use that leverage, politely, but use it. On Thu, 2005-02-03 at 16:19 -0500, Eric Siegerman wrote: On
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
So, you think if I disconnected the CD-rom (as a test), this would resolve the problem ?
The CD-rom is seldom used accept for emergency boots.
Also, I just tried a kernel with the ncr53c8xx driver and ultra conservative settings (for example,
setting to asynchronous I/O) and it behaves better. This time when I load the tape, I do not
get the strange error message in my original posting. It actually completed a small amdump, but then
failed again on the larger amdump. So, an improvement, but no cigar ... yet.
Yes, this is a 50-pin narrow cable plugged to the cd-rom and the 80-pin wide cable plugged to the rest
of the devices. Come to think of it, the 50-pin is just out there; no termination. Hmmm... let's try
that next.
On Fri, 2005-02-04 at 16:12 +0100, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:
On Fri, 4 Feb 2005, James D. Freels wrote:
The tape drive is within the VXA-2 Packet-Loader 1U rack mount. It is
connected via an external
scsi cable that came with the drive. the unit also came with it's own
terminator which is also plugged into the
packet loader. The packet-loader is the only device connected to the
scsi card externaly.
Inside, the scsi card has both a scsi-1 and scsi-2 connector. The
You mean, a narrow and a wide connector?
scsi-1 connector has a single device
connected (the CD-Rom). The scsi-2 connector has the rest of the
devices connected on a single cable
(3 hard drives, 1 VXA-1 Exabyte tape drive). It is a fairly long cable,
with about 8 inches of cable separating each
device. The last device on the cable is the VXA-1 tape drive followed
by a termination on the cable itself.
So the cabling is your problem: you should use maximum 2 of the 3 connectors on
a SCSI card, since it's supposed to be a single long chain without branches.
It's the same on mine (I have one with internal narrow and wide, and external
wide connectors).
Gr{oetje,eeting}s,
Geert
--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say programmer or something like that.
-- Linus Torvalds
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
On Fri, 4 Feb 2005, James D. Freels wrote:
So, you think if I disconnected the CD-rom (as a test), this would
resolve the problem ?
Probably (I hope so).
Also, I just tried a kernel with the ncr53c8xx driver and ultra
conservative settings (for example,
setting to asynchronous I/O) and it behaves better. This time when I
load the tape, I do not
get the strange error message in my original posting. It actually
completed a small amdump, but then
failed again on the larger amdump. So, an improvement, but no cigar ...
yet.
Asynchronous mode makes less assumptions about the cable.
Yes, this is a 50-pin narrow cable plugged to the cd-rom and the 80-pin
wide cable plugged to the rest
of the devices. Come to think of it, the 50-pin is just out there; no
termination. Hmmm... let's try
that next.
Usually CD-ROM drives have a jumper to enable the internal termination.
Gr{oetje,eeting}s,
Geert
--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say programmer or something like that.
-- Linus Torvalds
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
On Friday 04 February 2005 10:12, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:
On Fri, 4 Feb 2005, James D. Freels wrote:
The tape drive is within the VXA-2 Packet-Loader 1U rack mount.
It is connected via an external
scsi cable that came with the drive. the unit also came with it's
own terminator which is also plugged into the
packet loader. The packet-loader is the only device connected to
the scsi card externaly.
Inside, the scsi card has both a scsi-1 and scsi-2 connector. The
You mean, a narrow and a wide connector?
scsi-1 connector has a single device
connected (the CD-Rom). The scsi-2 connector has the rest of the
devices connected on a single cable
(3 hard drives, 1 VXA-1 Exabyte tape drive). It is a fairly long
cable, with about 8 inches of cable separating each
device. The last device on the cable is the VXA-1 tape drive
followed by a termination on the cable itself.
So the cabling is your problem: you should use maximum 2 of the 3
connectors on a SCSI card, since it's supposed to be a single long
chain without branches.
Said another way, that card may well have the narrow connector in
parallel with the wider one, and if thats the case, serious term
problems are in store. FWIW Geert, all 7 connectors on a given cable
can be used, provided the terms are removed from every device but the
last one, and the last device is truely on the end of the cable. And
the term power supplied is up to specs. The 4.3 to 4.4 volts you get
by way of the average cards isolation diode isn't spec by the .6
to .7 volts missing due to that isolation diode.
Now, where both the internal connectors on the card and the external
connector are in use as this person indicates, then the card, which
may have automatic terminations, must terminate ONLY those lines of
the wide bus that do not go on out via the rear panel connector to
any narrow devices at that end of the cable. The card, as far as the
original 8 bit data bus portion of the 50 pin cable, effectively
becomes a wired or device in the middle of the transmission line and
must not terminate those lines. I'm not fam with this card, but most
of the cards have an either/or term control, effectively rendering a
lashup such as is being described here, pretty much unworkable. My
best card was that advansys, and it did not have the ability to
terminate just the high order lines, which is what would be required
here.
I'd recommend strongly that this person get another scsi card, and put
the tape drive on it by itself, so that he has all the internal
devices on one card, and the external device on the other. Life will
be simplified considerably.
It's the same on mine (I have one with internal narrow and wide, and
external wide connectors).
Gr{oetje,eeting}s,
Geert
--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 --
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a
hacker. But when I'm talking to journalists I just say programmer
or something like that. -- Linus Torvalds
--
Cheers, Gene
There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order.
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
99.32% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly
Yahoo.com attorneys please note, additions to this message
by Gene Heskett are:
Copyright 2005 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
Interesting test. I powered down and disconnected the narrow 50-pin cable from card and unplugged
the power cable from the CD-ROM on the other end. In this configuration, there is
one wide 80-pin cable with 3 hard drives + 1 VXA-1 tape drive on the internal connection
to the card. The new packet-loader is on the external connector. Now turn on and reboot.
The Alphabios recognizes the devices correctly, milo boots up, then switches to
the linux kernel to boot up and the system just stops. I repeated this several times
and checked all connections and also tried several available kernel choices. Same thing.
Then I powered down, and reconnected the same narrow 50-pin cable back to the
same configuration and now the system boots and behaves just as before.
I am wondering now if there is some type of jumper on this pci card that enables/disables
the connectors such that if the internal 50-pin is enabled, it has to find a device to
boot; and perhaps a similar issue with the external connector ?
I mhave been searching the net for a manual on this scsi card and cannot seem to find
one since apparently symbios no longer keeps them for the ncr53c875 card ?
What scsi card to buy for this Alpha machine ?
On Fri, 2005-02-04 at 11:04 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote:
On Friday 04 February 2005 10:12, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:
On Fri, 4 Feb 2005, James D. Freels wrote:
The tape drive is within the VXA-2 Packet-Loader 1U rack mount.
It is connected via an external
scsi cable that came with the drive. the unit also came with it's
own terminator which is also plugged into the
packet loader. The packet-loader is the only device connected to
the scsi card externaly.
Inside, the scsi card has both a scsi-1 and scsi-2 connector. The
You mean, a narrow and a wide connector?
scsi-1 connector has a single device
connected (the CD-Rom). The scsi-2 connector has the rest of the
devices connected on a single cable
(3 hard drives, 1 VXA-1 Exabyte tape drive). It is a fairly long
cable, with about 8 inches of cable separating each
device. The last device on the cable is the VXA-1 tape drive
followed by a termination on the cable itself.
So the cabling is your problem: you should use maximum 2 of the 3
connectors on a SCSI card, since it's supposed to be a single long
chain without branches.
Said another way, that card may well have the narrow connector in
parallel with the wider one, and if thats the case, serious term
problems are in store. FWIW Geert, all 7 connectors on a given cable
can be used, provided the terms are removed from every device but the
last one, and the last device is truely on the end of the cable. And
the term power supplied is up to specs. The 4.3 to 4.4 volts you get
by way of the average cards isolation diode isn't spec by the .6
to .7 volts missing due to that isolation diode.
Now, where both the internal connectors on the card and the external
connector are in use as this person indicates, then the card, which
may have automatic terminations, must terminate ONLY those lines of
the wide bus that do not go on out via the rear panel connector to
any narrow devices at that end of the cable. The card, as far as the
original 8 bit data bus portion of the 50 pin cable, effectively
becomes a wired or device in the middle of the transmission line and
must not terminate those lines. I'm not fam with this card, but most
of the cards have an either/or term control, effectively rendering a
lashup such as is being described here, pretty much unworkable. My
best card was that advansys, and it did not have the ability to
terminate just the high order lines, which is what would be required
here.
I'd recommend strongly that this person get another scsi card, and put
the tape drive on it by itself, so that he has all the internal
devices on one card, and the external device on the other. Life will
be simplified considerably.
It's the same on mine (I have one with internal narrow and wide, and
external wide connectors).
Gr{oetje,eeting}s,
Geert
--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 --
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a
hacker. But when I'm talking to journalists I just say programmer
or something like that. -- Linus Torvalds
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
On Friday 04 February 2005 13:31, James D. Freels wrote: Interesting test. I powered down and disconnected the narrow 50-pin cable from card and unplugged the power cable from the CD-ROM on the other end. In this configuration, there is one wide 80-pin cable with 3 hard drives + 1 VXA-1 tape drive on the internal connection to the card. The new packet-loader is on the external connector. Now turn on and reboot. The Alphabios recognizes the devices correctly, milo boots up, then switches to the linux kernel to boot up and the system just stops. I repeated this several times and checked all connections and also tried several available kernel choices. Same thing. Then I powered down, and reconnected the same narrow 50-pin cable back to the same configuration and now the system boots and behaves just as before. This has the general flavor of the scsi driver hanging while doing the bus scan because now the terms are really wacko. A more valid test may be to stick a terminator on the external, connector after disconnecting the new drive from it, or visiting the cards own bios extensions, ahh, ... its an alpha, so that may not work either. In any event all bets are off because the cd had no power, which *could* leave the bus quite heavily loaded and probably unable to arrive at enough pullup power to make a logic 1 on any data line. The cd should be disconnected from the scsi cable entirely for that test. Puyrchance is it the last device, on the last connector? In which case it should have the terms turned on and power applied, or some other means of terminating the cable's end applied to the cable when its unplugged from the data cable. I am wondering now if there is some type of jumper on this pci card that enables/disables the connectors such that if the internal 50-pin is enabled, it has to find a device to boot; and perhaps a similar issue with the external connector ? I mhave been searching the net for a manual on this scsi card and cannot seem to find one since apparently symbios no longer keeps them for the ncr53c875 card ? What scsi card to buy for this Alpha machine ? On Fri, 2005-02-04 at 11:04 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote: On Friday 04 February 2005 10:12, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote: On Fri, 4 Feb 2005, James D. Freels wrote: The tape drive is within the VXA-2 Packet-Loader 1U rack mount. It is connected via an external scsi cable that came with the drive. the unit also came with it's own terminator which is also plugged into the packet loader. The packet-loader is the only device connected to the scsi card externaly. Inside, the scsi card has both a scsi-1 and scsi-2 connector. The You mean, a narrow and a wide connector? scsi-1 connector has a single device Questionable choice of terminology, both scsi-1, and scsi-2 are normally equipt with 50 pin connectors internally, and db-25's or hi-dens 50 pinners for the external connector. The db-25 is so short on decent grounds that its been the ruination of many an otherwise good setup. When you get to wide bus stuff, thats scsi-3, and possibly even LVD, which isn't compatible with single ended stuff. connected (the CD-Rom). The scsi-2 connector has the rest of the devices connected on a single cable (3 hard drives, 1 VXA-1 Exabyte tape drive). It is a fairly long cable, with about 8 inches of cable separating each device. The last device on the cable is the VXA-1 tape drive followed by a termination on the cable itself. Ok, a term is on that end of the cable. Are all other devices between that term and the card completely unterminated? AND is there a wide to narrow adaptor anyplace in this internal chain? When testing to see if the cdrom has anything to do with it, the cdroms cable must be disconnected from the card, which removes the poorly terminated cdrom (because its powered down too) from the circuit the only way it should be. So the cabling is your problem: you should use maximum 2 of the 3 connectors on a SCSI card, since it's supposed to be a single long chain without branches. Said another way, that card may well have the narrow connector in parallel with the wider one, most do exactly that FWIW, and some might even term the high order bits on the card, knowing it will never go offcard in the external direction. Unforch, you probably can't prove how its setup without taking that card to a wintel box gaining access to its own bios extension preceeding the machines normal boot. and if thats the case, serious term problems are in store. FWIW Geert, all 7 connectors on a given cable can be used, provided the terms are removed from every device but the last one, and the last device is truely on the end of the cable. And the term power supplied is up to specs. The 4.3 to 4.4 volts you get by way of the average cards isolation diode isn't spec by the .6 to .7 volts missing due to that isolation diode. Now, where both the internal
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
On Fri, 2005-02-04 at 14:36 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote:
The cable IS completely disconnected from the scsi card and the cd-rom IS the only
device on that cable. This is what is so strange. I did this test thinking it might
fix my problem since I am down from 2-internal, 1-external on the same card to
1-internal, 1-external. Both of which are terminated. The CD powered off should
have little to do with the problem since it is not connected to anything.
The cd should be disconnected from the scsi cable entirely for that
test. Puyrchance is it the last device, on the last connector? In
which case it should have the terms turned on and power applied, or
some other means of terminating the cable's end applied to the cable
when its unplugged from the data cable.
I am thinking about ordering an Lsi Logic LSIU80ALVD card ($70) and dedicate to this new device.
But I am not sure if the sym53c87xx-2 linux driver will work for it on the alpha. It should since
that driver works for the present card. For $70, it is worth a test, no ?
The Exabyte tech did specify an LVD card, but I think he is going for performance. I am just trying to
get the thing to work at this point.
I'd recommend strongly that this person get another scsi card, and
put the tape drive on it by itself, so that he has all the
internal devices on one card, and the external device on the
other. Life will be simplified considerably.
It's the same on mine (I have one with internal narrow and wide,
and external wide connectors).
Gr{oetje,eeting}s,
Geert
--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 --
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a
hacker. But when I'm talking to journalists I just say
programmer or something like that. -- Linus Torvalds
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
--On Friday, February 04, 2005 09:41 -0500 James D. Freels [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: When you say cabling issues, does this include a separate scsi card specific for the tape drive ? I think my cable connections are good. This encompasses a whle list of issues. The two or three most common, are cable length, termination, and cable quality. Because you have a 10MB/sec device on there you're limited to 3 meters (~9ft) (FAST SCSI). If you remove that CD-ROM drive you should have a fully LVD chain from the sounds of it which means you have up to 12 meters (~40ft). You also need to have LVD compatible active terminators in either case. Cheap passive terminators will likely not work at extreme cable lengths. And this length is *ALL* cabling, so it includes cabling internal to the VXA autoloader (I think about 1 meter, tops). I would try cabling the Exa to a dedicated SCSI port before trying to do any firmware updates. See if that clears up your problems, it really does sound like your SCSI bus is too long. The scsi card I have is a LSI Logic / Symbios Logic (formerly NCR) 53c875 (rev 04) All devices are indicating on boot up (dmesg) at 40 MB/s except the CD-Rom which is indicating 10 MB/s. I have 3 hard drives, 2 tape drives (including the new one having trouble), and 1 CD-Rom in this scsi chain. I have tried all three scsi drivers available for this card in the linux kernel 1) ncr53c8xx, 2) sym53c8xx, and 3) sym53c8xx-2. The ncr53c8xx driver seems to give the least problems, so I have concentrated on this one. As I said, the library (autoloader) seems to work correctly, but it is just the tape writing that is giving me problems at present. It is able to label the tapes, but not write a larger data set to the tape.
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
On Friday 04 February 2005 14:58, James D. Freels wrote: On Fri, 2005-02-04 at 14:36 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote: The cable IS completely disconnected from the scsi card and the cd-rom IS the only device on that cable. This is what is so strange. I did this test thinking it might fix my problem since I am down from 2-internal, 1-external on the same card to 1-internal, 1-external. Both of which are terminated. The CD powered off should have little to do with the problem since it is not connected to anything. The cd should be disconnected from the scsi cable entirely for that test. Puyrchance is it the last device, on the last connector? In which case it should have the terms turned on and power applied, or some other means of terminating the cable's end applied to the cable when its unplugged from the data cable. I am thinking about ordering an Lsi Logic LSIU80ALVD card ($70) and dedicate to this new device. But I am not sure if the sym53c87xx-2 linux driver will work for it on the alpha. It should since that driver works for the present card. For $70, it is worth a test, no ? No? Wrong answer... Yes, certainly. And since there is no difference in the software protocol that I'm aware of, the driver should work, this difference you relate to us below is 100% hardware only I believe. The Exabyte tech did specify an LVD card, but I think he is going for performance. I am just trying to get the thing to work at this point. Aha, LVD! LVD is not compatible with the rest of the system unless the rest of the system is also LVD. It is two, completely seperate signalling methods that just happen to use the same cabling. LVD means Low Voltage Differential. It is a 2 wire per data line system that trades what would be the regular interfaces normal wired or open collector TTL range voltages working against ground, with a grounded wire in between each active conductor in the ribbon cable for shielding and a shared, very low impedance ground between the devices since about 24 of the 50 wires in the narrow cable are used for ground. The LVD trades the ground wire out for its use as a comparator signal, where the signals voltages are compared to the other conductor, one being driven a few millivolts low, and the other a few millivolts high, or vice versa to determine if its a zero or a one. These interfaces can be very fast, up to 320MB/second with good cabling. I hope the exabyte has not been damaged by being plugged into a normal high voltage single ended circuit. We have heard anecdotal stories of damage to the LVD interface a time or 2 by such a cross connection. So basicly, yes, if the exabyte is an LVD device, then you must have an LVD capable scsi card to interface with it. Unless the manul describes a way to switch it, and since there are hardware diffs, it would be pretty complex to do that. Its probably easier to just change the drives interface card out for the other type of hardware. -- Cheers, Gene There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order. -Ed Howdershelt (Author) 99.32% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly Yahoo.com attorneys please note, additions to this message by Gene Heskett are: Copyright 2005 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
On Thu, Feb 03, 2005 at 03:03:22PM -0500, James D. Freels wrote: Here is what [drive vendor's Tech Support said] is needed: 1) need a separate scsi chain; they said I already have too many scsi devices on this chain to make it reliable. See recent threads re. SCSI cables, bus lengths, etc. (Recent == last month or two). 2) need to upgrade the firmware in the autoloader to the latest version; this may not work on an alpha machine and more likely will only work from an Intel machine I sure hope you mean only that the upgrade process might need an Intel box. If that's the case, doing the firmware upgrades is the cheapest and probably easiest thing to try, even if you do have to do some temporary recabling (well, as long as you have an Intel box with a SCSI adapter...) If on the other hand you mean that, once upgraded, the unit might be less Alpha-compatible than it was before ... send the #!*~ thing back for a refund! :-) -- | | /\ |-_|/ Eric Siegerman, Toronto, Ont.[EMAIL PROTECTED] | | / The animal that coils in a circle is the serpent; that's why so many cults and myths of the serpent exist, because it's hard to represent the return of the sun by the coiling of a hippopotamus. - Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
No. It should be still Alpha compatible. The problem is that the firmware upgrade utilities for Linux are binary-only so I cannot compile them for the alpha nor run them on the alpha. On Thu, 2005-02-03 at 16:19 -0500, Eric Siegerman wrote: On Thu, Feb 03, 2005 at 03:03:22PM -0500, James D. Freels wrote: Here is what [drive vendor's Tech Support said] is needed: 1) need a separate scsi chain; they said I already have too many scsi devices on this chain to make it reliable. See recent threads re. SCSI cables, bus lengths, etc. (Recent == last month or two). 2) need to upgrade the firmware in the autoloader to the latest version; this may not work on an alpha machine and more likely will only work from an Intel machine I sure hope you mean only that the upgrade process might need an Intel box. If that's the case, doing the firmware upgrades is the cheapest and probably easiest thing to try, even if you do have to do some temporary recabling (well, as long as you have an Intel box with a SCSI adapter...) If on the other hand you mean that, once upgraded, the unit might be less Alpha-compatible than it was before ... send the #!*~ thing back for a refund! :-) -- | | /\ |-_|/ Eric Siegerman, Toronto, Ont.[EMAIL PROTECTED] | | / The animal that coils in a circle is the serpent; that's why so many cults and myths of the serpent exist, because it's hard to represent the return of the sun by the coiling of a hippopotamus. - Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
On Thursday 03 February 2005 17:49, James D. Freels wrote: No. It should be still Alpha compatible. The problem is that the firmware upgrade utilities for Linux are binary-only so I cannot compile them for the alpha nor run them on the alpha. Are you saying its not a case of dd if=inputfile of=tape-device? They may have it wrapped up in something thats intel specific, but I'd almost bet a cold one that this intel specific loader does exactly that, particularly if its an admin program that has to be pointed at the file to be used for the upgrade itself. That doesn't mean you should jump right up and do it, but I'd sure be an inquisitive fly on the wall :) Talking to those folks like you might know what to do will often get the info even if they don't want to confirm it. Otherwise, I think if they insist on its being a wintel box that does the upgrade, I think I'd be a bit pushy about haveing them send someone out with the correct gear to do the upgrade if you don't have suitable gear on site, and definitely do it for nothing. It should have been uptodate when it was shipped IMO. I mean most changers are well above the 2000 dollar bill priceing range, some 10 to 20 times that price. For that you can reasonably expect it to work, or they should be very co-operative about remedying the situation since the loss of the sale isn't exactly pocket change to either of you. Use that leverage, politely, but use it. On Thu, 2005-02-03 at 16:19 -0500, Eric Siegerman wrote: On Thu, Feb 03, 2005 at 03:03:22PM -0500, James D. Freels wrote: Here is what [drive vendor's Tech Support said] is needed: 1) need a separate scsi chain; they said I already have too many scsi devices on this chain to make it reliable. See recent threads re. SCSI cables, bus lengths, etc. (Recent == last month or two). 2) need to upgrade the firmware in the autoloader to the latest version; this may not work on an alpha machine and more likely will only work from an Intel machine I sure hope you mean only that the upgrade process might need an Intel box. If that's the case, doing the firmware upgrades is the cheapest and probably easiest thing to try, even if you do have to do some temporary recabling (well, as long as you have an Intel box with a SCSI adapter...) If on the other hand you mean that, once upgraded, the unit might be less Alpha-compatible than it was before ... send the #!*~ thing back for a refund! :-) And thats your leverage. There are more or less accepted protocols to running one of these things, and if in their haste to make it a proprietary device so they have a locked in customer, they have seriously broken the protocols, you shouldn't want it anyway. What happens when you need to make a bare metal recovery and don't have, anyplace but on one of the tapes, a copy of the required protocol/access routines the support contract has expired? Thats not a scenario I'd want to find myself in, uh uh, no way Jose etc... -- | | /\ | |-_|/ Eric Siegerman, Toronto, Ont.[EMAIL PROTECTED] | | | / The animal that coils in a circle is the serpent; that's why so many cults and myths of the serpent exist, because it's hard to represent the return of the sun by the coiling of a hippopotamus. - Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum -- Cheers, Gene There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order. -Ed Howdershelt (Author) 99.32% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly Yahoo.com attorneys please note, additions to this message by Gene Heskett are: Copyright 2005 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.
Re: VXA-2 packet-loader issues and AMANDA [Fwd: hard luck with the new autoloader]
--On Thursday, February 03, 2005 15:03 -0500 James D. Freels [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am getting scsi sense errors using the new drive about 1-2 minutes after an amdump or amflush starts. Below are the reommendations from Exabyte tech support to fix it. I seem to remember doing FW upgrades on VXAs and DLTs was similar...you write the firmware to the tape, restart the tape, and it reads on the new firmware As far as sense errors, more likely it's a cabling issue.
