SAN Tape Robot/Library Configuration for RHEL AS 3.0
 

Does anyone have experience setting up tape library (robots) for use with Linux that they'd be willing to share?

We have an existing SAN comprised of EMC Clariion & Symmetrix arrays and an HP tape library (OEM of STK). We're using Connectrix for the switches and HP bridges for the SCSI tape drives in the library.

Recently we installed RHEL AS 3.0 on 4 DELL Poweredge servers (2850 & 6650).

We were able to get the 6650s to successfully mount the storage we'd allocated to them from the Clariion.

We've set up the zoning for all 4 servers in the Connectrix. The servers have QL2340 fibre channel HBAs.

Probably because we're new to SAN on Linux we don't understand what we're seing as regards the tape libary in /proc/scsi/scsi and /proc/scsi/ql2300*.

Note the robot is NOT the one that DELL sells. This robot is successfully used on all of our HP-UX servers.

Please post what is in the /proc/scsi/qlogic.

If you perform a dmesg, what the entries are listed referring to the qlogic? Are there any tape devices listed in /dev (nstx)?

One thing to do is to install qlogic hba management software (java app). If you do not see the tape devices,within the app, you most likely have a zoning issue. If you can see the tape devices within that application, that means the qlogic hba "sees" the tape devices. If the qlogic see the tape devices and you have nstx devices, you should be good. The robotics usually are picked up by /dev/sg (if I remember correctly) or the backup app takes care of it.