From: Kevin Beauchamp (Kevin.Beauchamp@ualberta.ca)
Date: Thu Nov 21 2002 - 13:09:35 EST
Hello:
I hope that someone can help me diagnose the problem I'm having adding
a tape drive to our AlphaServer.
The server is an AlphaServer 1000A.
The tape drive is a half-height ValuSmart 80 DLT, from Benchmark via
Tandberg. It's interface is a high-density 68-pin fast/wide SCSI LVD
port. Default address for the tape is "5".
Our 1000A has three SCSI channels:
Narrow, Single-Ended, on baseboard: picked up the CDROM, the
(original) DAT Tape and then goes to the rear of the server case,
where it is terminated.
Fast/Wide SE, on baseboard: picks up bottom three StorageWorks slots
then goes to rear of the server case, then to an external HD, with
a terminator on the HD case. One other HD lives in the StorageWorks
slot as the system boot device.
Mylex PCI RAID controller (F/W SE). Goes to the top four StorageWorks
slots. It is terminated on the top rear connector of the StorageWorks
chassis. Two HDs live in the top two StorageWorks slots for data.
The DLT is a replacement for an HP DAT drive, and is installed
in the same internal bay above the StorageWorks chassis.
I also want to attach it to the Narrow SE SCSI channel the old DAT
lived on. It looks like this can be done with the appropriate adapter.
Before starting, I checked to see which rmt devices existed (for the
HP). In /dev were:
nrmt0a
nrmt0l
nrmt0m
rmt0a
rmt0h
rmt0l
rmt0m
To allow me to use the f/w LVD DLT on the narrow SE SCSI channel,
I bought a Granite Digital 5275 adapter that terminates the upper
eight or nine address lines.
When I first went to install the DLT in the AlphaServer, I found that
the 5275 SCSI adapter I had bought assumed that the SCSI adapter on
the drive would be on the bottom edge: the adapter stuck up above
the top of the VS80 DLT since it's SCSI connector is on the upper
edge of the drive. I then got a short 68-68 pin (2 inch) SCSI adapter
cable that allowed me to move the adapter down. The 40-pin narrow
SCSI cable is attached to the 5275 adapter, and a 68-pin SCSI jumper
is plugged into the adapter on one side and into the DLT on the other.
I installed the drive (a very tight fit!) and powered up the system to
the SRM console. Ran a "SHOW CONFIG", and the device appeared as:
mka400.4.0.2000.0 BNCHMARK DLT1
The first thing I noticed was that its address was "4", not "5". Ok, I
thought, I'll check that later.
Other devices found by SRM's "show dev":
dka0.0.0.2000.0 DKA0 RZ29B
dka300.3.0.2000.0 DKA300 Seagate ST118273W
dra0.0.0.11.0 DRA0 2 member RAID
dva0.0.0.1000.0 DVA0
pka0.7.0.2000.0 PKA0 SCSI bus ID 7
... not including the NICs.
I booted the operating system. After several SCSI cam_errors on the
SRM console the system came up. Several new devices appeared in
/dev:
nrmt1a
nrmt1h
nrmt1l
nrmt1m
rmt1a
rmt1h
rmt1l
rmt1m
Looks good, but I when I try to tar a few files to it, nothing
happens. I get an error saying:
"tar: cannot open /dev/rmt0h: No such device or address"
I double checked the command I'd typed in: I had specified rmt1l.
I shut down the system to check the address jumpers. Sure enough,
during installation I had knocked the least-significant address jumper
out. I put it back in (it was sitting in the bottom of the server
case) and powered back up to SRM.
Now the DLT couldn't be seen at all! The other thing was that the
CDROM (dka400.4.0.2000.0 DKA400 RRD45) had reappeared, but had been
missing when the DLT was at address 4.
I've done several tests on the drive, trying different addresses. SRM
cannot detect the drive unless the address is 4, which of course
conflicts with the CDROM. At any other address, SRM does not see the
DLT. I even tried putting back the old DAT. SRM found it at address
5, and listed the device as mka500.5.0.2000.0 HP C1533A.
My two big questions are:
Does anyone have any experience with these DLTs in old AlphaServers?
Can anyone suggest a solution to this problem of getting the system
to recognize the DLT?
A couple of minor questions:
Do I have to manually edit the CAM db?
What about running makedev?
Should I see the device at address 5 come back as rmt5?
Although I wanted to put the DLT on the narrow SCSI bus, what
problems might I encounter if I moved it to the Fast/Wide bus on
the server's baseboard?
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Kevin Beauchamp
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.7 : Sat Apr 12 2008 - 10:49:00 EDT