Subversion Repositories or1k_soc_on_altera_embedded_dev_kit

README for the SCSI media changer driver

========================================

This is a driver for SCSI Medium Changer devices, which are listed

with "Type: Medium Changer" in /proc/scsi/scsi.

This is for *real* Jukeboxes.  It is *not* supported to work with

common small CD-ROM changers, neither one-lun-per-slot SCSI changers

nor IDE drives.

Userland tools available from here:

        http://linux.bytesex.org/misc/changer.html

General Information

-------------------

First some words about how changers work: A changer has 2 (possibly

more) SCSI ID's. One for the changer device which controls the robot,

and one for the device which actually reads and writes the data. The

later may be anything, a MOD, a CD-ROM, a tape or whatever. For the

changer device this is a "don't care", he *only* shuffles around the

media, nothing else.

The SCSI changer model is complex, compared to - for example - IDE-CD

changers. But it allows to handle nearly all possible cases. It knows

4 different types of changer elements:

  media transport - this one shuffles around the media, i.e. the

                    transport arm.  Also known as "picker".

  storage         - a slot which can hold a media.

  import/export   - the same as above, but is accessible from outside,

                    i.e. there the operator (you !) can use this to

                    fill in and remove media from the changer.

                    Sometimes named "mailslot".

  data transfer   - this is the device which reads/writes, i.e. the

                    CD-ROM / Tape / whatever drive.

None of these is limited to one: A huge Jukebox could have slots for

123 CD-ROM's, 5 CD-ROM readers (and therefore 6 SCSI ID's: the changer

and each CD-ROM) and 2 transport arms. No problem to handle.

How it is implemented

---------------------

I implemented the driver as character device driver with a NetBSD-like

ioctl interface. Just grabbed NetBSD's header file and one of the

other linux SCSI device drivers as starting point. The interface

should be source code compatible with NetBSD. So if there is any

software (anybody knows ???) which supports a BSDish changer driver,

it should work with this driver too.

Over time a few more ioctls where added, volume tag support for example

wasn't covered by the NetBSD ioctl API.

Current State

-------------

Support for more than one transport arm is not implemented yet (and

nobody asked for it so far...).

I test and use the driver myself with a 35 slot cdrom jukebox from

Grundig.  I got some reports telling it works ok with tape autoloaders

(Exabyte, HP and DEC).  Some People use this driver with amanda.  It

works fine with small (11 slots) and a huge (4 MOs, 88 slots)

magneto-optical Jukebox.  Probably with lots of other changers too, most

(but not all :-) people mail me only if it does *not* work...

I don't have any device lists, neither black-list nor white-list.  Thus

it is quite useless to ask me whenever a specific device is supported or

not.  In theory every changer device which supports the SCSI-2 media

changer command set should work out-of-the-box with this driver.  If it

doesn't, it is a bug.  Either within the driver or within the firmware

of the changer device.

Using it

--------

This is a character device with major number is 86, so use

"mknod /dev/sch0 c 86 0" to create the special file for the driver.

If the module finds the changer, it prints some messages about the

device [ try "dmesg" if you don't see anything ] and should show up in

/proc/devices. If not....  some changers use ID ? / LUN 0 for the

device and ID ? / LUN 1 for the robot mechanism. But Linux does *not*

look for LUNs other than 0 as default, because there are too many

broken devices. So you can try:

  1) echo "scsi add-single-device 0 0 ID 1" > /proc/scsi/scsi

     (replace ID with the SCSI-ID of the device)

  2) boot the kernel with "max_scsi_luns=1" on the command line

     (append="max_scsi_luns=1" in lilo.conf should do the trick)

Trouble?

--------

If you insmod the driver with "insmod debug=1", it will be verbose and

prints a lot of stuff to the syslog.  Compiling the kernel with

CONFIG_SCSI_CONSTANTS=y improves the quality of the error messages alot

because the kernel will translate the error codes into human-readable

strings then.

You can display these messages with the dmesg command (or check the

logfiles).  If you email me some question because of a problem with the

driver, please include these messages.

Insmod options

--------------

debug=0/1

        Enable debug messages (see above, default: 0).

verbose=0/1

        Be verbose (default: 1).

init=0/1

        Send INITIALIZE ELEMENT STATUS command to the changer

        at insmod time (default: 1).

timeout_init=

        timeout for the INITIALIZE ELEMENT STATUS command

        (default: 3600).

timeout_move=

        timeout for all other commands (default: 120).

dt_id=,,...

dt_lun=,,...

        These two allow to specify the SCSI ID and LUN for the data

        transfer elements.  You likely don't need this as the jukebox

        should provide this information.  But some devices don't ...

vendor_firsts=

vendor_counts=

vendor_labels=

        These insmod options can be used to tell the driver that there

        are some vendor-specific element types.  Grundig for example

        does this.  Some jukeboxes have a printer to label fresh burned

        CDs, which is addressed as element 0xc000 (type 5).  To tell the

        driver about this vendor-specific element, use this:

                $ insmod ch                     \

                        vendor_firsts=0xc000    \

                        vendor_counts=1         \

                        vendor_labels=printer

        All three insmod options accept up to four comma-separated

        values, this way you can configure the element types 5-8.

        You likely need the SCSI specs for the device in question to

        find the correct values as they are not covered by the SCSI-2

        standard.

Credits

-------

I wrote this driver using the famous mailing-patches-around-the-world

method.  With (more or less) help from:

        Daniel Moehwald 

        Dane Jasper 

        R. Scott Bailey 

        Jonathan Corbet 

Special thanks go to

        Martin Kuehne 

for a old, second-hand (but full functional) cdrom jukebox which I use

to develop/test driver and tools now.

Have fun,

   Gerd

--

Gerd Knorr