[comp.periphs.scsi] Auto Configuring SCSI

vail@tegra.COM (Johnathan Vail) (03/29/91)

I will be needing to auto configure the disk IO system for use with
unix.

I figure I would use Device Inquiry and Mode Sense commands at all the
SCSI addresses, then build my device table from that info.

Is there a better or more standard way to do this?

Are there problems or concerns that I am not aware of yet?


Post here or email and I will summarize the results.

Thanks, jv.


"I remember when the sea was full of fish with mysterious names:
Mudrake, Cornsweat, Yasmuda, and there wasn't much to do in a day."
 _____
|     | Johnathan Vail | n1dxg@tegra.com
|Tegra| (508) 663-7435 | N1DXG@448.625-(WorldNet)
 -----  jv@n1dxg.ampr.org {...sun!sunne ..uunet}!tegra!vail

mjacob@wonky.Eng.Sun.COM (Matt Jacob) (03/30/91)

Using the INQUIRY command makes a lot of sense. The reason
why it is not done (at least, at Sun) can be broken down
into:

a) We support non-CCS compatible devices. That is, the INQUIRY
command was optional until the CCS pseudo standard (and now
mandatory in SCSI-2).

b) You can get a generic device type out of the INQUIRY
data, and you can also get Vendor ID and specific Product
data from the INQUIRY data as well. However, that may
present problems when you wish to bind one of several
slightly different drivers. If you structure your I/O
system such that each GENERIC class of SCSI device
gets a driver that can grok how to deal with variants,
yer a happy camper.


-matt