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Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/s390')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/s390/TAPE | 122 |
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diff --git a/Documentation/s390/TAPE b/Documentation/s390/TAPE deleted file mode 100644 index c639aa5603f..00000000000 --- a/Documentation/s390/TAPE +++ /dev/null @@ -1,122 +0,0 @@ -Channel attached Tape device driver - ------------------------------WARNING----------------------------------------- -This driver is considered to be EXPERIMENTAL. Do NOT use it in -production environments. Feel free to test it and report problems back to us. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ - -The LINUX for zSeries tape device driver manages channel attached tape drives -which are compatible to IBM 3480 or IBM 3490 magnetic tape subsystems. This -includes various models of these devices (for example the 3490E). - - -Tape driver features - -The device driver supports a maximum of 128 tape devices. -No official LINUX device major number is assigned to the zSeries tape device -driver. It allocates major numbers dynamically and reports them on system -startup. -Typically it will get major number 254 for both the character device front-end -and the block device front-end. - -The tape device driver needs no kernel parameters. All supported devices -present are detected on driver initialization at system startup or module load. -The devices detected are ordered by their subchannel numbers. The device with -the lowest subchannel number becomes device 0, the next one will be device 1 -and so on. - - -Tape character device front-end - -The usual way to read or write to the tape device is through the character -device front-end. The zSeries tape device driver provides two character devices -for each physical device -- the first of these will rewind automatically when -it is closed, the second will not rewind automatically. - -The character device nodes are named /dev/rtibm0 (rewinding) and /dev/ntibm0 -(non-rewinding) for the first device, /dev/rtibm1 and /dev/ntibm1 for the -second, and so on. - -The character device front-end can be used as any other LINUX tape device. You -can write to it and read from it using LINUX facilities such as GNU tar. The -tool mt can be used to perform control operations, such as rewinding the tape -or skipping a file. - -Most LINUX tape software should work with either tape character device. - - -Tape block device front-end - -The tape device may also be accessed as a block device in read-only mode. -This could be used for software installation in the same way as it is used with -other operation systems on the zSeries platform (and most LINUX -distributions are shipped on compact disk using ISO9660 filesystems). - -One block device node is provided for each physical device. These are named -/dev/btibm0 for the first device, /dev/btibm1 for the second and so on. -You should only use the ISO9660 filesystem on LINUX for zSeries tapes because -the physical tape devices cannot perform fast seeks and the ISO9660 system is -optimized for this situation. - - -Tape block device example - -In this example a tape with an ISO9660 filesystem is created using the first -tape device. ISO9660 filesystem support must be built into your system kernel -for this. -The mt command is used to issue tape commands and the mkisofs command to -create an ISO9660 filesystem: - -- create a LINUX directory (somedir) with the contents of the filesystem - mkdir somedir - cp contents somedir - -- insert a tape - -- ensure the tape is at the beginning - mt -f /dev/ntibm0 rewind - -- set the blocksize of the character driver. The blocksize 2048 bytes - is commonly used on ISO9660 CD-Roms - mt -f /dev/ntibm0 setblk 2048 - -- write the filesystem to the character device driver - mkisofs -o /dev/ntibm0 somedir - -- rewind the tape again - mt -f /dev/ntibm0 rewind - -- Now you can mount your new filesystem as a block device: - mount -t iso9660 -o ro,block=2048 /dev/btibm0 /mnt - -TODO List - - - Driver has to be stabilized still - -BUGS - -This driver is considered BETA, which means some weaknesses may still -be in it. -If an error occurs which cannot be handled by the code you will get a -sense-data dump.In that case please do the following: - -1. set the tape driver debug level to maximum: - echo 6 >/proc/s390dbf/tape/level - -2. re-perform the actions which produced the bug. (Hopefully the bug will - reappear.) - -3. get a snapshot from the debug-feature: - cat /proc/s390dbf/tape/hex_ascii >somefile - -4. Now put the snapshot together with a detailed description of the situation - that led to the bug: - - Which tool did you use? - - Which hardware do you have? - - Was your tape unit online? - - Is it a shared tape unit? - -5. Send an email with your bug report to: - mailto:Linux390@de.ibm.com - - |