Re: Tape Drive With Linux.

Hi, Matthew!

Matthew Stanfield ([email protected]) wrote 54 lines:

> Hopefully this is the last time I will bother you (and the mailing list)
> with a 'setup my tape drive' question.

No, I think this is the right place for it :-)

> It says to add the line (append="hdd=ide-scsi") -my brackets- to my
> /etc/lilo.conf file,

You know about the kernel boot parameters?
(http://www.ibiblio.org/mdw/HOWTO/BootPrompt-HOWTO.html)

Adding 'append="hdd=ide-scsi"' to /etc/lilo.conf basically means
that
- it is assumed you use lilo to boot your kernel
- you will add the BootPrompt-parameter 'hdd=ide-scsi' (using
  lilo).

> The problem is, I have no /etc/lilo.conf file only a

Then you probably are not booting using lilo.  Does your machine
say LILO just after the hardware display and before starting up
the kernel?

If you are not using lilo, you need to add the
BootPrompt-parameter 'hdd=ide-scsi' in a way that your booting
mechanism understands.

> The web page then says to run lilo (which I don't know how to do, but guess
> a re-boot would be ok instead)

Actually, no.  To run lilo means that you simply type
"lilo<RETURN>" as root.  However, since you don't have an
/etc/lilo.conf you should *not* do that, since you probably
*will* destroy data.

Rebooting however is neccessary before your tape drive will work,
since you have to tell the kernel /not/ to see your hdd as an ide
drive (which will otherwise grab that device _first_ and not let
ide-scsi near it), but use the ide-scsi driver for it.

> and then to add this line (modprobe
> ide-scsi) to the file /etc/rc.d/rc.local --this file I do have.

Which will load the ide-scsi driver as a module.  If it's
compiled into your kernel, this will generate a harmless warning.
If you have compiled your kernel yourself, you have to make sure
that the ide-scsi driver is available.

> Finally it says that the tape drive will appear as /dev/nst0 after a reboot
> and suggests creating a link to /dev/tape which I don't know how to do but,
> it claims, may be necessary for some software.

/dev/tape, /dev/mouse, etc are 'convenience' links.  Instead
of telling every program on every machine what the mouse, tape
drive, etc. is, you tell them all to look for these 'generic'
devices and change the setting once on each machine.

To generate a soft link (a ->look_there type of reference), use:
    ln  -s  WHERE_TO_LOOK   WHERE_THIS_LINK_SHALL_LIE
i.e.
    ln -s nst0 /dev/tape

An ls -l /dev/tape will then give you
| $ ls -l /dev/tape
| lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     root            9 Aug 29  2001 /dev/tape -> nst0

-Wolfgang
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