Re: [cobalt-developers] Onstream Tape Drives & Cobalt Qube 3?

[Byron Servies <bservies@xxxxxxx>]

Kevin Thomson wrote:


> 	4. At the command prompt, type : mt -f /dev/st0 status. This should display
> information about the tape drive. If this does not occur, 	re-check your
> set-up.
>
> At first I thought "great now I can continue working on the backup software"
> till I actualy tried "mt -f /dev/st0 status" through telnet and get a
> "command not found" responce for "mt".  So I'm thinking, okay, maybe they
> meant Mount, or mnt, no go there either as far as getting the device to
> work.  Anyways, I call Onstream, The tech support people swear up and down
> that the mt command stands for magnetic tape drive and its part of the st
> driver, stating that if that command isn't found that its a fault of the
> distrobution and I need to get an updated source of the kernel and
> recompile.

They are correct: mt does stand for "magnetic tape."  Oddly, though, it is not
included with the Qube3's software load. It should be.

You can get a copy at:

ftp://ftp.freesoftware.com/pub/linux/sunsite/system/backup/

look for mt-st-0.5b.tar.gz; I downloaded it and it compiled and installed
fine on my qube3.  Unfortunately, I don't have a tape drive handy to hook up
and test.

Also look in dmesg after you boot.  The kernel should detect the tape and assign
/dev/st?? numbers in order.  It will also load the st module, which you should be
able to see if you run lsmod or cat /proc/modules.

HTH,

Byron

--
Byron Servies       Sun Microsystems, Inc.    bservies@xxxxxxx