setup external scsi tape drive
 

Hello,

I am trying to setup a Dell Powervault 100T (DDS4) on a Dell Poweredge 2650 running Red Hat 7.3 Kernel 2.4.18-3smp. I had to install an adaptec SCSI card (AHA-3960D). I believe i have the SCSI card setup correctly... Below is a list of several files to verify that statement.

/etc/sysconfig/hwconf
---------------------
class: SCSI
bus: PCI
detached: 0
driver: aic7xxx
desc: "Adaptec|AHA-3960D / AIC-7899A U160/m"
vendorId: 9005
deviceId: 00c0
subVendorId: 9005
subDeviceId: f620
pciType: 1

/etc/modules.conf
-----------------
alias parport_lowlevel parport_pc
alias scsi_hostadapter aacraid
alias eth0 e1000
alias eth1 tg3
alias eth2 tg3
alias usb-controller usb-ohci
alias scsi_hostadapter1 aic7xxx
alias scsi_hostadapter2 aic7xxx

/sbin/lsmod
scsi_mod 112272 4 [aic7xxx st aacraid sd_mod]

cat /proc/scsi/scsi
Host: scsi1 Channel: 00 Id: 06 Lun: 00
Vendor: ARCHIVE Model: Python 06408-XXX Rev: 9100
Type: Sequential-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 03

ls -l /dev/tape
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root /dev/tape -> /dev/st0

ls -l /dev/nrtape
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root /dev/nrtape -> /dev/nst0


So next I added the following line to /etc/fstab
/dev/st0 /mnt/tape auto defaults 0 0

when I try:
mount /mnt/tape
mount: /dev/st0 is not a block device

Could someone please help me or at least point me in the right direction?

Thankyou
Bill

In order to mount a device, it must have a filesystem on it. Tapes are not used in this manner usually.

Tapes are used as "sequential access" devices and not "direct access" devices. Meaning, you can't just point and click to where you want to go like on a hard disk or removable media.

What exactly are you trying to do?

-K

KevinJ is correct you can not mount a tape drive.
You can use the mt utilities to verify the tape drive:

mt -f /dev/tape status

See man pages for additional options. Its on the RH CDs if not already installed.

You can use tar, taper or any number of backup applications. Checkout www.freshmeat.net

I just wanted to say thankyou! The following command showed me the tape drive that I will be using for backups.

mt -f /dev/tape status

I then used tar to do my backups. Use the following command to backup all files in the listed directory.
tar -zcvf /dev/tape /usr/Backup

Thanks Again!
Bill