curt@ecn.purdue.edu (Curt Freeland) (03/22/90)
We have been running Exabyte tape drives on our SUN systems here for some time now. Now we would like to start using them on our Apollo systems (DN3500). We have the drive connected to the SCSI port on the WD disk controller. This is as far as we got. We do not know what driver software is required, how to order it, how to configure it, ... HP/Apollo has not been much help. We have been calling them for 2 months, and still have no answer. Whatever driver is loaded does not "see" the drive that is out there. It does find our cartrige tape drive when we connect it to the system, and disconnect the Exabyte. If you are running an Exabyte on your Apollo DN3500, I would be interested in hearing from you. Thanks, Curt Freeland Manager, Systems Engineering Engineering Computer Network Purdue University (317) 494-3715 (curt@mischief.ecn.purdue.edu) or (uunet!pur-ee!curt)
krowitz%richter@umix.cc.umich.edu (David Krowitz) (03/22/90)
Apollo only supports the Exabyte drive with the Omniback program. Omniback uses a new magtape library which drives the Exabyte tape, regular 9-track tapes, and (I think) cartridge tapes. *ALL* of the other Apollo tape utility programs that I know of (wbak/rbak, tar, rwmt, dd, etc) use the original magtape device library which supports only 9-track and cartridge tape drives, not the Exabyte tape drive. We purchased our Exabyte drive from Workstation Solutions. They provided a magtape library which is automatically loaded before you run a program and which makes the Exabyte drive look like a standard 9-track tape drive using the older magtape library. Thus, we can use wbak/rbak, rwmt, tar, dd, et. al. with our 8mm tape unit. My information on the Apollo tape libraries is several months old at this point. They may (or may not) have plans to merge the two tape libraries in the future, but at this point it seems that only the older tape library, which does not support the 8mm drive, is shipped with the OS. The new library is apparently shipped with Omniback (or is stored in a library whose name is not readily apparent to me). -- David Krowitz krowitz@richter.mit.edu (18.83.0.109) krowitz%richter.mit.edu@eddie.mit.edu krowitz%richter.mit.edu@mitvma.bitnet (in order of decreasing preference)
achille@cernvax.UUCP (achille petrilli) (03/23/90)
In article <1990Mar21.160013.5672@ecn.purdue.edu> curt@ecn.purdue.edu (Curt Freeland) writes: >We have the drive connected to the SCSI port on the WD disk >controller. This is as far as we got. We do not know what driver >software is required, how to order it, how to configure it, ... >HP/Apollo has not been much help. We have been calling them for >2 months, and still have no answer. Whatever driver is loaded does not >"see" the drive that is out there. It does find our cartrige >tape drive when we connect it to the system, and disconnect the >Exabyte. Hi, to use the Exabyte you should be running 10.2 or have Omniback on 10.[01]. There is no special library for SCSI magtapes. At 10.2 the installation will create a type manager rmt_scsi and 4 devices, rmts[89] and rmts1[23]. These are for SCSI magtapes target id 1 and 2 respectively and rewind on close/no rewind on close. If your mag tape unit should run on a different SCSI id, you have to create new devices whose major number is the same as rmts8 and minor number is 4 * target_id [ + 32 ] Add 32 for the no-rewind-on-close device. I ran using the sr10.2 rmt_scsi manager Exabyte units, DAT units and IBM 3480 compatible units. All of those units ran without a problem. Just write/read to/from them like on real Unix. Unfortunately the /bin/mt program does not allow you to do anything more than rewind on SCSI mag tape units. I guess you can position on specific file numbers using ioctl. Good luck, Achille Petrilli
dbfunk@ICAEN.UIOWA.EDU (David B Funk) (03/23/90)
In posting <1667@cernvax.UUCP>, Achille Petrilli writes: >In article <1990Mar21.160013.5672@ecn.purdue.edu> curt@ecn.purdue.edu (Curt Freeland) writes: >>We have the drive connected to the SCSI port on the WD disk >>controller. This is as far as we got. We do not know what driver >>software is required, how to order it, how to configure it, ... [stuff deleted] > >Hi, >to use the Exabyte you should be running 10.2 or have Omniback on 10.[01]. >There is no special library for SCSI magtapes. At 10.2 the installation >will create a type manager rmt_scsi and 4 devices, rmts[89] and rmts1[23]. [stuff deleted] >I ran using the sr10.2 rmt_scsi manager Exabyte units, DAT units and IBM >3480 compatible units. >All of those units ran without a problem. Just write/read to/from them >like on real Unix. Unfortunately the /bin/mt program does not >allow you to do anything more than rewind on SCSI mag tape units. I guess >you can position on specific file numbers using ioctl. >Good luck, > Achille Petrilli sr10.2 will provide you with the type manager and device files (/dev/rmt*) to access the Exabyte tape drive. The optional OmniBack product provides a special version of "mt" that can be used to position the 8 mm tapes. Here is an excerpt from the OmniBack Release 1.2 notes: OmniBack mt Command OmniBack uses Domain/OS type managers to access tape devices, but SR10.1 does not currently provide full support for the SCSI device access method. However, OmniBack supplies an mt-compatible command for use until base software is provided. The OmniBack command is called /etc/omniback/bin/new_mt, and it provides primitive tape positioning functions. It supports the same options as does the UNIX mt command for SCSI tape devices.