Re: Using Exabyte Mammoth-2 tapes on OpenBSD

According to <jKILLSPAM.schipper@xxxxxxxxxx>:
DoN. Nichols <dnichols@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
All,


I've got an Exabyte 430 tape jukebox with two drives
(Mammoth-2).

They need to be connected to LVD SCSI, so I have found a PCI LVD
SCSI card to put in an Ultra-5.

The drive most distant from the terminator with SE SCSI works
most of the time read and write up to certain sizes -- Under Solaris 10
on an Ultra-2.

If the hardware is faulty, any attempt to get it to work reliably is
doomed, of course.

Of course.

I'll presume that you have already verified the hardware to be correct,

Since I can write even with SE SCSI instead of LVD (under
Solaris) -- as long as it is not the closest drive to the SE terminator,
(and swapping the drives allows me to verify the other), it would appear
that the drives are fine. And with the LVD PCI board in the OpenBSD 3.8
Ultra-5, and a proper LVD terminator, I can *read* to the end of some
very large tarfiles (albeit I can't *write* on this setup), I think that
it is a problem with the drivers in OpenBSD, not with the hardware. (I
wish that I could find a LVD sBus card for the Ultra-2 -- then I would
be able to use it where I was using an Exabyte EZ-17 changer with a
Mammoth-2 substituted for the original Mammoth-I.) That latter is what
I used to write the original large tarfiles.

and try to help a little - this is not exactly something I know a lot
about, but a little answer is still preferable to no answer...

I thank you. I was beginning to believe that nobody here had ever
used Mammoth-2 drives under OpenBSD (which may still be the case) and
was then waiting for someone else to answer. I know that I have not
responded when I did not know enough to answer (or even to suggest a
possibility) on some questions.

Thank you for the answer, at least.

With the system connected to the LVD SCSI controller on an
OpenBSD 3.8 system (mostly because I am too lazy to move it to OpenBSD
3.9 for the moment, as it is serving its main function), I can control
the jukebox with chio with no problems, and read tapes written on other
machines in either drive (with a differential terminator in place, of
course).

However -- I cannot *write* to the drives at all. It doesn't
even write enough to render previously-written files unaccessible. :-(

From the dmesg output on that system:

======================================================================

siop0 at pci2 dev 1 function 0 "Symbios Logic 53c896" rev 0x07: ivec 1810, using 8K of
on-board RAM
scsibus1 at siop0: 16 targets
siop1 at pci2 dev 1 function 1 "Symbios Logic 53c896" rev 0x07: ivec 1811, using 8K of
on-board RAM
scsibus2 at siop1: 16 targets
ch0 at scsibus2 targ 9 lun 0: <EXABYTE, Exabyte 430, 2.18> SCSI2 8/changer removable
st0 at scsibus2 targ 10 lun 0: <EXABYTE, Mammoth2, v07g> SCSI2 1/sequential removable
st0: density code 0x28, 1024-byte blocks, write-enabled
st1 at scsibus2 targ 11 lun 0: <EXABYTE, Mammoth2, v07g> SCSI2 1/sequential removable
st1: density code 0x28, 1024-byte blocks, write-enabled
======================================================================

And -- when we start having problems:


======================================================================
siop1: target 10 now using 16 bit 40.0 MHz 31 REQ/ACK offset xfers
st0(siop1:10:0): unhandled message 0x23
st0(siop1:10:0): unhandled message 0x23
st0(siop1:10:0): unhandled message 0x23
siop1: target 9 now using 8 bit async xfers
ch0: 30 slots, 2 drives, 1 picker, 1 portal
siop1: target 11 now using 16 bit 40.0 MHz 31 REQ/ACK offset xfers
st1(siop1:11:0): unhandled message 0x23
st1(siop1:11:0): unhandled message 0x23
st1(siop1:11:0): unhandled message 0x23
st0(siop1:10:0): Check Condition (error 0x70) on opcode 0x0
SENSE KEY: Not Ready
ASC/ASCQ: Logical Unit Is in Process Of Becoming Ready
st0(siop1:10:0): unhandled message 0x23
st0(siop1:10:0): unhandled message 0x23
st0(siop1:10:0): unhandled message 0x23
st0(siop1:10:0): unhandled message 0x23
st0(siop1:10:0): unhandled message 0x23
======================================================================

So -- does OpenBSD 3.8 or 3.9 deal properly with Exabyte Mammoth
2 drives?

Apparently not?

That is what I am beginning to believe.

Does something special need to be put into the kernel source and
a recompilation performed -- similar to the "st.conf" changes in Solaris
10 as below?

======================================================================
tape-config-list= "EXABYTE Mammoth2", "Mammoth2 8mm Helical Scan", "M2";
M2 = 1,0x35,0,0x19e39,1,0x28,0;
======================================================================

No.

Thank you.

If all else fails, I'll pick up another Ultra-5 or Ultra-10,
stuff Solaris 10 into it, and use the PCI LVD card in that, since I do
know that Solaris 10 *will* write to the drives.

If more of the dmesg is needed, I can post it all, but opted to
keep the overall size of this down somewhat, so I trimmed it to what I
*think* matters.

This looks like the useful part.

That is what I thought would be the case. Often, there is so
much dmesg posted that I can't figure out where to start. :-)

If a search of the web doesn't yield any more useful information - and
it doesn't look like, from a quick look at the first page of Google -

I tried the FAQ file and some others.

you might want to repost this to misc@xxxxxxxxxxxx which reaches a
larger audience.

Thank you. I will.

I guess that I will have to register for that mailing list? Or
is it an open one? I guess to get the answers, I will need to register.

Thanks,
DoN.

--
Email: <dnichols@xxxxxxxxxxx> | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---
.

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