Hi All,

I've got an HP 6-tape autoloader (Surestore 12000e) on my RH8.0 box. I've linked my /dev/tape to /dev/st0, and it works great, but what I'm not sure how to use the other dev's for this device?

e.g. st0a, st0l, st0m

I figured out that nst0* is a no-rewind device, so that's clear. So I looked at st(4) and it wasn't clear what each of the other devs do.

And I also need to enable compression (to negate using -z with the tar command), can I do this as well by selecting the right 'device'? I'm assuming as well that my h/w supports compression...

Thanks for any pointers.

Corey.

Here is what I see in my /usr/src/linux-2.4/Documentation/devices.txt file (Red Hat 7.3 system):
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
9 char SCSI tape devices
0 = /dev/st0 First SCSI tape, mode 0
1 = /dev/st1 Second SCSI tape, mode 0
...
32 = /dev/st0l First SCSI tape, mode 1
33 = /dev/st1l Second SCSI tape, mode 1
...
64 = /dev/st0m First SCSI tape, mode 2
65 = /dev/st1m Second SCSI tape, mode 2
...
96 = /dev/st0a First SCSI tape, mode 3
97 = /dev/st1a Second SCSI tape, mode 3
...
128 = /dev/nst0 First SCSI tape, mode 0, no rewind
129 = /dev/nst1 Second SCSI tape, mode 0, no rewind
...
160 = /dev/nst0l First SCSI tape, mode 1, no rewind
161 = /dev/nst1l Second SCSI tape, mode 1, no rewind
...
192 = /dev/nst0m First SCSI tape, mode 2, no rewind
193 = /dev/nst1m Second SCSI tape, mode 2, no rewind
...
224 = /dev/nst0a First SCSI tape, mode 3, no rewind
225 = /dev/nst1a Second SCSI tape, mode 3, no rewind
...

"No rewind" refers to the omission of the default
automatic rewind on device close. The MTREW or MTOFFL
ioctl()'s can be used to rewind the tape regardless of
the device used to access it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Not much info on what the modes mean though.