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diff --git a/mtxl.README.html b/mtxl.README.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7f7e6d4 --- /dev/null +++ b/mtxl.README.html @@ -0,0 +1,165 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML//EN"> +<html> + <head> + + <title>SCSI Media Changer and Backup Device Control System</title> + + </head> + + <body> +<center> + <h1>SCSI Media Changer and Backup Device Control System</h1> +</center> +<p> +[Also see the SourceForge <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/mtx"> +project page</a>.] +<p> +<i>mtx</i> is a set of low level driver programs to control features +of SCSI backup related devices such as autoloaders, tape changers, +media jukeboxes, and tape drives. It can also report much data, +including serial numbers, maximum block sizes, and TapeAlert(tm) +messages that most modern tape drives implement (to tell you the exact +reason why a backup or restore failed), as well as do raw SCSI READ +and WRITE commands to tape drives (not important on Linux, but +important on Solaris due to the fact that the Solaris tape driver +supports none of the additional features of tape drives invented after +1988). <i>mtx</i> is designed to be a low level driver in a larger +scripted backup solution, such as <a +href="http://amanda.sourceforge.net">Amanda</a>. +<i>mtx</i> is not +supposed to itself be a high level interface to the SCSI devices that +it controls. +<p> +This version has the following features: + + <ul> + <li> Will deal with LARGE media libraries (over a hundred elements). + <li> Supports multi-drive media changers such as the Exabyte 220 dual- +drive tape library. + <li> Supports the 'invert' bit for optical jukeboxes that need that in +order to flip their media. + <li> Supports the 'eepos' bits for libraries that need this to extend/retract +their import/export tray. + <li> Now supports import/export elements! + <li> Reports volume tags (bar codes) and "alternate volume tags" +(whatever those are!) for those tape libraries +that support them. +<li> Now runs under FreeBSD and at least Solaris 8. + +<li> Now has a 'man' page! +<li> The actual SCSI manipulation has been separated out into a library, so +that you can create your own "C" programs that manipulate SCSI media changers +directly. (Please note: this is under GPL, so any such programs will have +to be under GPL also). +</ul> + +<p> + This program supposedly supports FreeBSD, Solaris, Linux, HP/UX, and +IRIX. Tru64 Unix and VMS are probably irretrievably broken at this +time. This program has been tested under FreeBSD, Solaris, and Linux, +and there only with a limited set of hardware. See the COMPATIBILITY +list in the source code. +</ul> +<h2> Source Code </h2> +The current source code is: +<ul> +<li> <a href="http://mtx.sourceforge.net/mtx-1.2.13.tar.gz">http://mtx.sourceforge.net/mtx-1.2.13.tar.gz</a> +</ul> +RPMs may be available from the following place: +<ul> +<li> <a href="http://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/mtx.html">RPMfind's 'mtx' page</a> +</ul> +A .spec file is now included in the 'mtx' distribution for building your +own RPM's. +<p> +Note that RPMs +are courtesy of <a href="http://www.sewingwitch.com/ken/">Kenneth Porter</a>, +who should be contacted regarding rpm-related problems. +<p> + +<h2> Known Bugs And Limitations </h2> +<ul> +<li> + You may need to do a 'mt offline' (or equivalent for your OS) + on the tape drive to + eject the tape before you can issue the 'mtx unload' command. +The Exabyte EZ-17 and 220 in particular will happily + sit there snapping the robot arm's claws around thin air + trying to grab a tape that's not there. +<li> +The 'next' command does not understand the 'invert' bit (i.e., does not +recognize that for optical jukeboxes, the 'next' of side one is to unload, +invert, and reload the same disk). It always advances to the next +slot instead. + <li> + For some Linux distributions, you may need to re-compile + the kernel to scan SCSI LUN's in order to detect the media + changer. Check /proc/scsi/scsi to see what's going on. + +<li> + If you try to unload a tape to its 'source' slot, and said + slot is full, it will instead put the tape into the first + empty slot. Unfortunately the list of empty slots is not + updated between commands on the command line, so if you + try to unload another drive to a full 'source' slot during + the same invocation of 'mtx', it will try to unload to the + same (no longer empty) slot and will urp with a SCSI + error. + +<li> For big tape libraries (more than a couple dozen elements) this +may set a big Allocation_Size in the SCSI command block for the +REQUEST_ELEMENT_STATUS command. Some operating systems may not be able +to handle this. Versions of Linux earlier than 2.2.6, in particular, +may fail this request due to inability to find contiguous pages of +memory for the SCSI transfer (later versions of Linux 'sg' device do +scatter-gather so that this should no longer be a problem). + +<li> VMS and Tru64 support are probably irretrievably busted. + + +<li> This program will only use the first arm of multiple-arm robots unless +the robot re-maps all arms to one element ID. + +<li> It has been reported that this program works on Solaris 7 using the 'sst' +driver, and may work on Solaris 8 using the 'sgen' driver. 'sst' can +be gotten from the Amanda contrib directory at +<a href="http://download.sourceforge.net/amanda/">http://download.sourceforge.net/amanda</a>. + +</ul> + +<h2> Philosophy </h2> +The Unix philosophy is "many small tools chained together". <i>mtx</i> supplies +those small tools so that you can create your own backup and +recovery tools by chaining +<i>mtx</i> pieces together, whether it be with /bin/sh, Perl, Python, or +CAML. + + +<h2> Support </h2> +<ul> +<li>There is now a 'mtx' mailing list at <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/mtx/">http://sourceforge.net/projects/mtx/</a>. +<li>There is now a 'mtx' home page at <a href="http://mtx.sourceforge.net">http://mtx.sourceforge.net</a>. +<li> There is now a FAQ that is part of the source code. Please read the +FAQ first. +<li>Report problems to Eric Lee Green (<a +href="mailto:eric@badtux.org">eric@badtux.org</a>). READ THE FAQ FIRST! +</ul> + +<h2> See Also: </h2> +<ul> +<li>The man page for 'mtx'! (once you get it installed). +<li>T-10 SCSI Working Group home page at <a href="http://www.t10.org">www.t10.org</a>. +<li>The Linux 'sg' SCSI generic driver home page at <a href="http://www.torque.net/sg/">http://www.torque.net/sg/</a>. +<li> <a href="http://badtux.org/eric">The Home Page Of <UL> Tags Anonymous</a> Hi, my name is Eric, and I am addicted to the <UL> tag... +</ul> + <hr> + <address>Maintained by <a href="mailto:eric@badtux.org">Eric Lee Green</a><br> + Hosted by <a href="http://www.valinux.com">VA Linux</a>'s <a href="http://www.sourceforge.net">SourceForge</a></address><br> + + +<!-- Created: Fri Mar 3 12:19:38 MST 2000 --> +<!-- hhmts start --> +Last modified: Mon Jun 25 15:37:22 MST 2001 +<!-- hhmts end --> + </body> +</html> |